


Will you sing my Hallelujah?

by manboobs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, McCall Family Feels, Musician Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Is Bad at Feelings, Stilinski Family Feels, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-09-26 04:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manboobs/pseuds/manboobs
Summary: Stiles comes back to Beacon Hills for Scott and Lydia's wedding. Their lives unravel.Fluff and pain happen in equal parts. Yay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from Hole's "Samantha"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to this fic that seems like a lot of fluff but actually contains a shitload of angst because I suck. :) We hope you enjoy your flight with manboobs airlines, please pay extra for salted peanuts and fizzy water

**Present day**

“Fine! Fine.” He sighs through his nostrils violently, keeps pacing.

“Fine, Scott!” he yells into the phone. A few people turn to look at him as they walk past. Whatever. He’s far from the only weirdo yelling into a phone they’ll ever see on campus.

Scott’s still blabbering on at the other end of the line, delirious with joy. Fuck. Today of all days. The Gods are really testing Stiles with this shit.

Phone still firmly at his ear, he turns around, abandoning any hope to return to the practice room and get a few hours alone with the grand piano before bed. He goes on a sacred quest for coffee. So what if it’s after 7pm? There will be no sleeping happening tonight, anyway.

So.

Scott, Stiles’ bestest bud, his brother from another mother, his lil’ friend from preschool, his roommate freshman year of college. Sunny smile, floppy hair Scott is getting married. And Stiles is the best man, of course he is. A Blood Pact sealed that shit up when they were thirteen, a few hours after Stiles’ mom had been buried in her wedding dress.

Scott’s talking excitedly about flower arrangements and white tuxedo rentals as Stiles strides toward his favorite coffee shop. _White tuxedos_. Stiles’ heart pinches painfully in his chest. He squashes various feelings down as he grumbles assent into the phone. He can’t start panicking. He’s not that person anymore.

“Scott, buddy, everything is great, it’s all awesome”, he interrupts his friend harping on about choices of flower girls. “I gotta go, man.” He’s facing the door of the heavenly place of caffeine. It’s warm and fragrant inside and full of normal people who don’t get married at twenty. He needs in, _now_.

Scott lets him go with a cheerful “can’t wait to see you!”

Stiles wishes he could return the sentiment, but all he can muster right now is dread. And dread usually translate into caffeine abuse. As do hunger, stress, fatigue, depression and joy. Whatever, he’s a student, he’s supposed to be this way.

Of course he’s happy for his friend, he’s not a _monster_. It’s just that he knows what a wedding means. It means Beacon Hills. Home.

It means sleeping in his childhood bedroom, and forcing his dad to eat carrots and broccoli. It means two weeks away from the quiet and claustrophobia of Morrison Hall practice rooms. Two weeks away from a black and white keyboard, two weeks for his fingers to go back to their slow, uncoordinated ways. He’s been working so hard...

It means two weeks without the luxury of worrying about the live performance in April or the theoretical foundation of his thesis on musical practice as a way to manage ADHD symptoms. It’s shit, he knows it is. Ugh, whatever. At least his advisor is excited about it.

It means seeing certain- people. He’s gotten used to not seeing, ever. Except in his nightmares.

But, he’s the best man. And Scott and Lydia scheduled the wedding during spring break on purpose, so that their friends could come. Allison’s flying in from France. He’s gotta go. God. He needs so much coffee.

 

**Eight years ago**

Stiles is banging his heels on the seat of the plastic chair. Swinging his legs one after the other, bang bang. Every time he does, the guy in front of him blinks his eyes in mild annoyance. Stiles smirks, looks down at the blur of his sneakers below him. Bang bang.

A door is thrown open on his right. A Disapproving Parental Figure comes out of it, crosses its arms and stands, feet apart, looking at him. Swoosh swoosh. Bang bang. Stiles turns his head slowly, looks at his dad, in full Sheriff mode, looking at him with the Stare of Doom. He smiles as innocently as he can.

He gets the usual treatment. The concerned look, the folded hands on the desk, the therapist-approved speech. “Experiencing grief on his own rhythm, finding constructive ways to express himself, maybe more counseling, blah blah fuckedy blah.” Stiles rolls his eyes. He’s thirteen, not a moron. He knows he’s acting out, so what? All he wanted to do was take the squad car for a spin in the Preserve. He figured, driving a car must not be that difficult, if Scott’s dad manages to do it. And he’s seen movies, he knows how to steal a car. He just forgot a small detail. The alarm. On the Sheriff station parking lot. Yeah, ok.

His dad sighs. He tells Stiles he will stay at Scott’s tonight, and tomorrow they’ll have The Talk. They’ve had about a million talks since the funeral. Stiles shrugs, nods. Fine, he’ll sleep at Scott’s. He might be able to convince him to sneak off when his parents are asleep, play CoD on the big TV downstairs. Scott’s mom always buys the big bags of Cheetos Stiles likes.

A deputy drives him to the McCalls in a cruiser. His dad thinks this will intimidate Stiles into good behavior. Stiles just thinks it’s cool. He’s a vandal. An outlaw. A _rebel_. Who has a drawer full of Spider-Man pajamas in Scott’s room. The officer is a young guy who doesn’t try and give him a “think of your poor dad” speech, which is the least cool thing about this little tradition.

Mrs McCall is waiting for him with reheated lasagna, and Scott wants to show Stiles a new game on the computer. They sneak a bottle of Mountain Dew upstairs. Mrs McCall pretends not to see.

That night, Stiles lays awake on his designated mattress next to Scott’s bed, listening to his friend’s light snores, watching the play of shadows drawn by trees and street lamps on the bedroom ceiling. He’s been coming to sleep here so often these past few months, he might as well live here. Get adopted by the McCalls, make it official. Take the room next to Scott’s, the one reserved for the little brother or sister who never came. His dad wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. He could visit sometimes. Like, for Thanksgiving. It’d be a good deal. He’d be Scott’s brother and have an endless access to Cheetos. He’d have a mom again.

::

The next day, his dad doesn’t give him the Talk he’d been expecting. In fact, they don’t see each other at all. Mrs McCall wakes him and Scott pretty early, says she’s been called to the hospital, he and Scott need to go hang out at Stiles’ house for a while. They don’t ask questions. They’ve figured out a while ago that they’re not allowed to stay at Scott’s house on their own because Scott’s dad keeps his guns in the house. The Sheriff’s are all kept at the station. Eh. Stiles is not interested in guns. He likes baseball bats, as weapons go.

They sprawl on the couch and marathon Harry Potter movies, because for some reason Scott is crabby and Hogwarts always cheers him up. They start at the third movie, they are not babies anymore. Halfway through the fourth, Scott falls asleep. Stiles switches to GTA, plays on his own for a while. When he looks up from his console, it’s dark out, the room bathed in eerie, early evening darkness. Scott is still dead to the world. Stiles hyperfocused again.

His stomach contracts in hunger and anxiety. They’re alone. His dad hasn’t come home. He usually orders pizza when Scott’s over. They eat it on the couch, “like men”, he says. Scott always laughs at that.

He gets off the couch, pads over to the kitchen where his dad keeps the emergency phone. He calls his dad’s direct line at the station.

“Stilinski”, the Sheriff's tired voice answers.

“Hey dad”, Stiles says. Um. He’s not sure what to add. He doesn’t want to admit he gets scared when he doesn’t hear from his dad for a while.

His dad sighs, long and hard into the phone.

“Stiles, hey, kiddo.” He’s exhausted. Warm.

Embarrassment and comfort rise from the pit of Stiles’ stomach. His dad’s okay.

“I’m sorry I haven’t made it home yet, son”, the Sheriff continues. “There’s been a fire.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Present day**

As soon as he hits the city limit, a siren makes him jump. He hits his head on the roof of the Jeep. Ouch. He throws a look over his shoulder, eyes the police cruiser behind him. He pulls over, already rolling his eyes. His dad parks behind the Jeep, saunters to his car all smarmy and fake-threatening in full uniform, sunglasses on. Embarrassing.

He pulls Stiles from his car and into a hug, smiling wide. They hug tight, clapping each other on the back a couple times too many. His dad smells like bad coffee, gunpowder, and his leather chair. Stiles feels twenty pounds of worry and tension melt from his shoulders. God, it’s so good to see him.

The house is the same. It’s always the same. The garden is overgrown. His dad makes a not-so-veiled suggestion for Stiles to take advantage of the nice weather and mow the lawn. Nice. He’s home.

His room is the same state he left it in in last summer. He didn’t come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. His dad came down to San Francisco, they made a road trip out of it. The room is a bit dusty, a bit moldy, exactly how Stiles has always known it. Old guitar abandoned in a corner, sheet music piled up all over the desk, Iron Man sheets on the single bed. Standing here, he feels like he’s fifteen and a million years old at the same time.

“Kiddo, I’m calling for pizzas!” his dad’s calls from downstairs.

He leans out of the room to yell back. “Make sure they put vegetable on yours!”

His dad’s hearty laugh answers him. Ha! Wait a few days, and Stiles will transform this laugh in pouty grumbles as his dad digs into a plateful of Brussels sprouts. He swears it.

The pizzas are delivered by a young man in a sweaty, blue BHFD t-shirt and an unending smile, who pounces on Stiles the second he opens the door and smothers him with kisses and hugs.

“Ow, Scott, get off”, Stiles protests laughingly as Scott has him in a choke hold with one arm, the other one perfectly balancing a stack of pizzas.

“Never”, he crows. “I’m never letting you go, dude, you never fucking come back- sorry Sheriff”, he amends as he spots Stiles’ dad observing them, elbows resting on the kitchen counter, a satisfied smile on his face.

Stiles glances at him. He _knew_ it. This is all an ambush. Scott might not even be getting married. He breaks free of Scott’s hold with difficulty - Scott’s become quite the beefcake - eyes both his favorite men on earth with suspicion.

“What is this?” he asks. “An intervention?”

Scott rolls his eyes, shoves Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles stumbles a little bit. Seriously, with the muscles?

“Don’t be stupid, man! It’s a welcome home party!” Scott says, waving his arms around like a loon.

Stiles snorts. His dad is staying suspiciously silent, observing both of them, but Stiles decides to let it go. Three hours in town is too early to antagonize his family. Besides, he knows to pick his battles here. He opens the pizza boxes, looks right at his dad with steel in his eyes.

“No veggie special?”

His dad gives him a smirk and a minute shrug. Stiles has half a second of clarity where the universe has come full circle. He remembers himself in his early teens, insufferable delinquent that he was, giving the same smirk-and-shrug to his exhausted father. He feels a pang of understanding and sympathy for his old man. Wordlessly, he passes him a slice of pepperoni-cheesy-oily goodness.

Listen, he knows he’s being mercilessly manipulated here, by his family, his own blood, his people. But, for now, he can’t bring himself to care. Scott settles on a stool next to him at the kitchen counter, his dad facing him, and they eat. Scott talks about wedding preparations and how glad he is that Stiles is there to help him decide between types of lace for the tablecloths. Stiles is throwing increasingly panicked, please-save-me-from-this looks at his father, who looks quietly satisfied, like he finally got the revenge on his son for all these years of misdemeanors and premature grey hairs. He’s home.

 

**Eight years ago**

The adults sit them down. Scott’s mom and dad are there, so is Stiles’ dad and a strange lady who keeps looking at them with huge, searching eyes. She has a clipboard in her left hand and a miserable air about her. His dad says she’s from social services.

They say there’s been a big fire at the house of one of their classmates. They’re talking in their concerned parent voice, which makes Stiles feel about five year old. But they look tired, too. Mrs McCall’s eyes are all red. Stiles knows what that means. Adults only cry when they’re getting a divorce or someone is dying. Scott asks which classmate. Stiles crosses his fingers behind his back. Please let it be “Whittemore”.

It’s not. “Cora Hale”, says his dad. Ice fills Stiles’ veins. Next to him, Scott hiccups suddenly. Scott knows Cora pretty well, he did a bio project with her last semester. He went to her big house in the woods, the one who always looks haunted in winter, and came back with tales of numerous siblings, plushy carpeted floors, a creepy uncle and multiple bathrooms.

Stiles and Scott had been very excited because Cora’s mom had allowed them to go work in Cora’s room and it had been the first (and only) time one of them had stepped foot in a girl’s bedroom. A _girl_ ’s bedroom. It felt like the Holy Grail. Stiles fantasized often about being invited over at the Martins’ and seeing what Lydia’s room looked like.

Scott asks bravely over his shaky voice, if Cora’s okay. They both know she isn’t, or there wouldn’t be four adults in the room looking at them like they might explode. They all look at each other, trying to determine who will be the one delivering bad news to the children. Mrs McCall loses this one. She sighs, looks at them sadly. She uses the voice she reserves for sentences like “lasagna is in the oven” to tell them about the fire that devastated the ancient, reputed Hale house, and all the people in it.

Scott starts crying. Stiles clears his throat. He looks to his dad.

“What’s the cause of the fire?” he asks, trying for a matter-of-fact voice. It’s easier looking at the facts, separating yourself from emotions. That’s what cops do.

Over his dad’s shoulder, Mr McCall looks at him strangely. His dad frowns at him, but answers anyway.

“It took the firefighters almost the entire day to extinguish the fire and make sure the remaining structure was sound enough for investigation”, he tells Stiles in his Sheriff voice, with just a hint of affection seeping through. “But preliminary findings point to electrical malfunction.”

Behind his dad, Mr McCall nods his assent. “It was an old house”, he adds.

Stiles catches the subtle tightness in his father’s jaw at Mr McCall’s remark. He nods his understanding at his dad.

Scott’s full-on sobbing in the arms of his mom. Stiles looks at his own hands, pressed on his knees.

“Are you delivering the news to all her classmates?” Stiles asks suddenly, frowning. It seems kind of unpractical for a Sheriff to go through town delivering the news personally to everyone who knew the Hales. They’re - were - a big, sprawling family, it would take actual days to-

His dad shakes his head. “No, kiddo”, he says. His eyes betray a huge sadness. He looks to Mrs McCall, who nods at him, her arms full of a weeping Scott.

“Boys”, he says, putting on her nurse voice, “the reason we’re telling you this way”, she wipes her cheeks clean of her own tears, looks at them seriously, “someone from Cora’s family didn’t die in the fire.” Scott gasps loudly, making Stiles jump a bit.

“Her older brother, Derek - Derek Hale - he wasn’t in the house this morning, when it-” She swallows, looking away for a second.

“He’s only sixteen”, she continues with difficulty, “and he has no one left. So-” she trails off, looks to her husband, who nods quickly, arms folded tightly across his chest. “We thought he could stay with us, for a while. We’d be a- a kind of”, she glances at the lady with the clipboard, “foster family.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Present day**

Scott insists, pleads and threatens Stiles into going wedding ring shopping with him the next day. Stiles stays up until 2am searching, going over every entry on bestmanship on the web with a fine tooth comb, but he finds no legal or moral loophole through which to hop and hide away from this ordeal.

In the morning, his dad watches him stomp off with dread with a mocking smile on his face. “Told you blood pacts were stupid”, he says into his mug. Stiles flips him off. He feels grudging respect for the man. Pulling off an “I told you so” a decade later? Nice.

Scott picks him up in his old, beat up Ford Fiesta, the one he bought when he got accepted into an apprenticeship at the Beacon Hills Fire Department. He’s singing alone to the radio, blasting Blink-182 like they’re in some sort of teen comedy. This day is the worst in Stiles’ existence. He needs coffee, and quiet, and callous on his hurting fingers. Not this. Never this.

What’s surprising, is the amount of thought he’s already given in his life to the question: what kind of wedding ring would suit Lydia Martin? His hormone-addled teen brain actually considered that exact same question for hours on end. If his old laptop could be brought back to life, many a google search on jewelry could be found with that exact purpose in mind. Princess cut, carats, white gold, the whole deal. The thing is: Stiles doesn’t want to be reminded that he used to be such a loser. And he doesn’t want to admit it to himself or his best friend.

He’s moping, yeah. So what? He looks at Scott, bouncing on his seat behind the wheel, sunglasses on, harmonizing wildly off-key with Mark Hoppus about how it was never the same again after you came and went and blah blah blah. Stiles feels called out a bit, tunes it out. Scott’s still the same old Scott, it seems, except from the obvious bulk of him, the way his t-shirt stretches obscenely on his chest and arms. He reminds Stiles of a nineteen year old Derek, for a passing second. He shakes the thought away.

Scott catches his eye, smiles at him, all teeth and rainbows. Doofus. Hard to believe this guy fight fires for a living.

Scott enrolled at UC Berkeley, like Stiles, and got accepted, like Stiles. They road tripped it all the way down to San Francisco (what? With the right people, a three-hour commute is a total road trip), Stiles’ keyboard strapped to the roof of the car. They moved into the rundown, disgusting shoe box of an apartment Stiles still lives in to this day. Stiles’ full ride as a music major was already insured by scholarships and local grants. Scott wanted to major in veterinary science.

About three months in, Stiles realized he was far from the star music student Beacon Hills had lead him to believe he was. Big shot in a small city, he needed to study twice as hard as some to keep up with the impressively diverse first year curriculum. He had to drop a class just so he could clock in the necessary hours in practice rooms to scrape a passing mark. Music was a very competitive field. What a novel idea.

As a music major, he was required to practice at least three instruments. He shopped around for a while, trying different things. He was thrown out of brass class. Violins were already full. Bass was too easy. And then he fell. Not in love, no. He literally fell. Down the stairs of the grand orchestra practice room, he landed at the feet of the TA. So, feeling awkward and stupid and kind of obliged to do so, he tried out drums. And that’s when he fell in love. Where piano and guitar had helped tremendously in channeling his concentration into an activity that also allowed him to express emotions safely, drums let him dispel his energy in new, exciting, violent ways.

Stiles got his groove back. He found himself, he found his people, and he found a home somewhere between the student lounge and the practice rooms of Morisson Hall.

Scott kept up with his classes like a good boy. He was slightly discomfited that college involved so much studying and so few crazy parties with girls and booze, but he made do. He applied himself, took the required classes, handed in essays, charmed his TA’s. He rocked at college. Then Melissa had a car accident. Nothing severe, a broken leg, the car totaled. Derek was there, but Scott would not eat or sleep until he saw his mom, alive and well. He borrowed Roscoe, Stiles’ Jeep, and made the drive that night.

He stayed with his mom to help her out around the house. Run errands, cook, buy the good pain meds, the whole good son charade. One week, then two. Then a month had passed, Melissa was walking fine with crutches, and Scott wasn’t back at college. One the first day of Christmas break, he drove down to pick Stiles up, apologetic puppy face in tow. They spent the whole drive home catching up and telling jokes and playing zitch dog. They didn’t talk about Scott’s absence from their tiny, badly heated apartment.

On the second day of the new year, Scott showed up at Stiles’ dad’s house, parked himself on the couch, and halfway through a game of vintage CoD, told Stiles he had dropped out. He told Stiles he’d been depressed at college and coming home had allowed him to realize that. He told him home was home and he couldn’t see himself living away from it. He told Stiles he was sorry, and he’d pay his part of the rent until Stiles could find another roommate, and Stiles was, and would always be, his bestest bro ever. They cried. They hugged. They ate a bag of Cheetos and resumed their game.

A few days later, Stiles drove back to Berkeley alone. Scott began the lengthy, difficult process of becoming a Beacon Hills firefighter. Stiles had never been so proud of his best bud.

A year later, Scott enrolled at Beacon Hills Community College for his Fire Science degree, dead set on a career in the department he’d just been accepted in. And that’s how he came to be the beefcake he is today. God. His biceps are the size of Stiles’ thighs. Like, Stiles’ biceps aren’t bad either, don’t get him wrong. Intense drums practice do pretty good things to your arms, even if he’s going a little deaf in the left ear from that one time he forgot to put earplugs on before rehearsals.

They stop in front of the only jewelry store in Beacon Hills, a dark space with dusty window displays showing eighties-style rings and necklaces. Stiles gives Scott a Look, but the puppy just rocks back on his heels and smiles. Inside, a store clerk gives Scott a wide smile and calls him Mr McCall, waving them in.

They get shown an immense variety of assorted wedding rings in different types of metal: platinum, titanium, zirconium, all the colors of gold and silver, with or without diamonds, large, solid, thin, everything that you can find in a small town like Beacon Hills is there, under their eyes. Scott oohs and aahs at some of them, casting questioning glances at Stiles.

“Think she’d like this one?” he asks Stiles, pointing at a titanium ring encrusted with tiny rubies.

Well. Stiles knows for a fact that the ring fifteen year old Lydia Martin would have wanted is the double-banded one with rose gold and yellow gold fitted with a princess-cut diamond on top. Classy yet showy. The kind of ring Jackson Whittemore would have bought her if they had ever gotten married. Fortunately for everyone she dumped his ass some time during junior year and he moved to London or whatever.

But Stiles has no idea if Scott’s Lydia would like that ring, or any of those. Stiles’ Lydia would have never ever, not in any kind of universe, dated, let alone married, someone like Scott, except to get something specific out of them, and then destroy them. So, for the sake of his sanity and because he has total faith in his best friend, he chose about a year ago to believe his Lydia and Scott’s Lydia are two different people.

He sighs. Okay. Fine. He’s here, he’s queer. He’s his best friend’s fucking best man. They’re going to do this. He turns to Scott.

“Tell me everything you know about Lydia’s current taste in jewelry.”

For a second, Scott’s smile eclipses all the diamonds displayed in front of them. Aw. They talk through every option together, weighing diamonds versus simple bands, brainstorming engraving options, trying on about every kind of metal present on earth on their ring fingers “just to see the feel of it”. They get so into it, Stiles can almost see the moment where Scott’s gonna ask if they can make him a custom ring out of kryptonite.

Finally, after about three interminable insufferable unthinkable hours, tears (Scott’s, from emotion, the store clerk’s, from boredom), a burrito break (Stiles’ - what? he has needs) and about four thousand dollars spent, Scott carefully entrusts Stiles with a small box containing two thin rose gold bands, both engraved with their names and the date of their wedding, the bride’s encrusted with a row of tiny white diamonds. He must admit, even Stiles got a bit emotional when he saw both engraved rings resting in the red velvet box.

They leave the store happy and exhausted, victorious, better men than they were when they entered. They hug it out, because they’re tired and emotional and wedding stuff makes people do weird things.

Stiles takes Scott for burgers.

 

**Almost two years ago**

His pillow’s buzzing, jerking him awake from a blissful, drunken sleep. He fiddles with his phone, trying to make. it. stop. but the name on the screen catches his attention. Scott knows not to call him on a Saturday morning/afternoon unless it is a complete and total emergency. Saturdays are for sleeping in and watching Netflix in bed. Sometimes having a smoke, then right back to bed. Sundays are for laundry, guitar practice at home and calling his dad. So Stiles has his days planned like he’s an old, lonely man, so what? It’s nice to be able to depend on things.

He forces one of his eyes all the way open, swipes right and swipes and swipes and swipes until his phone gets the message and the call finally connects.

“Don’t freak out”, is the first thing Scott says into the phone.

Stiles freaks out.

“Scott, what- is it my dad? Oh god he’s dead, isn’t he? Is he? Scott, what happened? Did he get shot? Scott, please-”

Yeah. He’s worked himself into a full panic in about two seconds flat. Good job.

“No, no, Stiles, no!” Scott yells into the phone, cutting Stiles off. In his mind’s eye, Stiles can see him making big “abort” gestures with the arm not holding the phone.

Stiles is trying to control his hammering heart and wheezy breath as Scott reassures him.

“Your dad is okay, man, that’s not why I’m calling at all, dude. Calm down.”

Scott’s using his soothing, in charge, fireman voice on Stiles, training taking over unconsciously. It’s kinda working. Stiles’ breathing settles. He swallows.

“Dude, who the fuck-” he sighs, short and shaky, “who starts a phone call like that?”

“I know, I’m sorry”, Scott answers quickly. “I just, kinda panicked. Sorry.”

Stiles is fully awake now. He gets up and off his bed, runs a hand through his hair as he makes a beeline for the coffee maker. “So, what did you call me for?” he asks. “On a Saturday”, he feels the need to add pointedly.

He can practically hear Scott wince through the phone. “Uhm. Lydia Martin’s naked in my bed?”

Stiles drops the phone.

::

Lydia came back to Beacon Hills in June, exactly two years after she left it behind for her epic MIT adventure. Two years, that’s how long it took her it to graduate from her Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics. Talk about a legend. She was hell bent on starting her Master’s Degree right away, but she allowed herself a summer home to celebrate. Though why she’d thought that would be a good idea, she forgot the second she set foot in Beacon Hills. Most of her friends had left town. Allison was in France. Even Jackson had gotten out of this boring place.

She was toying with a Math theorem she thought would probably make a good essay. Publication was always recommended in academia. And she was bored out of her mind. One morning as she was doodling in her notebook in the town’s only halfway-decent coffee shop, someone entered that made her look up. The first thing she remembers is thinking about Seriously Jacked arms and a cute butt. Then she saw the blue t-shirt. She was hooked. The dude turned around and smiled at her. It was McCall. She blinked stupidly, then pretended she hadn’t seen him, tapping her pen nervously on the blank pages of her notebook.

Pathetic.

She started seeing him everywhere. The grocery store, passing by her parents’ house on a run (who runs without a shirt on in Northern California? she asked herself, before remembering McCall’s brother was Derek Hale. figures), the movies. Everywhere she was, there was McCall and his jacked arms. Through the grapevine she learned he was studying at community college to become a full-time firefighter. That was- well. That was hot.

The first time they actually talked was at a summer party at the house of a girl Lydia vaguely knew from high school, whose parents had a pool. A stupid frat-boy type had almost shoved Lydia into it as she was walking around it to get to the drink’s table. McCall has chivalrously saved her from frizzy hair and soaking underwear. They’d spent most of the evening talking about pool safety. Lydia was fascinated.

McCall - Scott - was - different. From high school, most of what she knew about him came from his romantic highs and lows with Allison, and Jackson’s fierce jealousy during Scott’s short stint as Lacrosse captain. Mostly second-hand information. What she remembered first hand was floppy hair and a sunny smile, always getting into ridiculous shenanigans with that spazz-turned-frenemy, Stilinski.

In Junior year, Lydia had overindulged in self-pity after her breakup with Jackson, and taken Stilinski to prom. She had planned on seducing then destroying him for fun, but in the face of such intense adoration and bright intellect, she’d chosen to let him off easy instead. A sort of grudging admiration blossomed into friendship between them during Senior year. He’d made the fight for Valedictorian fun, if, in the end, a doozy. Of course, the whole thing had been complicated by the many twists and turns of Allison and Scott’s break-up tragedy.

That night, at the pool party, high school seemed a million years ago. They talked and laughed and danced and he asked if he could walk her home. She said yes. He took her hand on the way back. It was every romantic cliches packed into one boring evening and Lydia was eating it up. One night away from academic achievement and high potential and sophistication and the Ice Queen reputation she had earned in college just because she dared being more focused on her studies than on boys. She’d thought she’d been done with teenage boys. As Scott kissed her chastely on her doorstep that night, she thought, maybe not.

Scott was different than anyone she’d dated. He didn’t feel the need to show off or prove his physical or intellectual superiority. He was happy to be sent grocery shopping for the other firefighters or to spend hours cleaning the station floors, if that made him part of the team. He smiled at her in that crooked way that meant welcome. He was as sunny as his smile, but he also had a quiet, underlying strength about him. He loved people. His mom, his brother, his best friend. He made it uncomplicated and fun.

Uncomplicated and fun was the exact opposite of everything Lydia knew. She fell for it.

Every time they hung out he looked happily surprised, quietly hopeful. She wasn’t a prize for him to show off, that much was obvious.

In August, she left with regret. He drove her to the airport. MIT was waiting. She tackled her Masters’ in a year, got a book published on the theorem she was working on in the meantime. Her doctorate was waiting for her with open arms. But so did Scott. When she walked into the Arrivals hall, there he was. On one knee. With a ring.

She said yes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Present day**

Scott doesn’t want a bachelor party. He’s formal about that. All he wants is to marry Lydia, and make her happy, and the rest he doesn’t care about. I mean it, Stiles, he said. Stiles got the message. He plans on going to Scott’s a night or two before the wedding, bring a couple fancy European beers, and reminisce about the good old days. They’ll get all sappy, probably play some CoD in memory of the good times. It’ll be just the two of us.

But no, it’s too easy, of course.

He’s weighing carrots in the grocery store when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Unknown number. He frowns. Maybe another student who wants to copy his notes? He answers.

“Stiles.”

“H- hey, um”, an hesitant voice says. “Hi, Stiles.” Okay… “It’s Liam. From school?”

Stiles racks his brain trying to remember where he knows a Liam from. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t- oh no. _That_ Liam?

“From Beacon High?” Stiles asks, stunned.

“Yeah.” A nervous giggle escapes Liam’s throat.

Why. Why why why. Why would he. Why would Liam Dunbar call him. It’s been almost four years. Why.

“Sooo-”, Liam hedges into the silent line, “Scott probably told you I am a groomsmen. Of Scott’s. For his uh- his wedding. In two weeks.”

No. Scott definitely did not tell him Liam Dunbar was one of his groomsmen. And he’d know, because his brain would have exploded. Like it is now. Come to think of it, that’s probably why Scott didn’t tell him.

“Okay”, Stiles says when the silence has stretched too long even for him.

“Soooo-” Liam reiterates. Jesus Fucking Christ.

“What is it, Liam?” Stiles cuts in. He transfers his weight from one foot to the other, looking around himself. Do zucchinis go with carrots?

“I know you’re- you know, at school, so- I mean, you don’t-”

Give Stiles strength.

“You couldn’t organize it for Scott, and- I’m at home, right? Doing nothing, so-”

A bad, bad feeling rises in the pit of Stiles’ stomach, like that time Liam gave Scott a graduation gift, and it was a bong. Melissa saw it, freaked out, and Scott was grounded for a month. In June. Right after graduating high school. Fun times.

“What did you do?” Stiles asks, dread rising in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m throwing him a bachelor party, man!” Liam replies happily. “Next Friday. You’ll be there, right? You have to be there.”

Stiles runs a hand down his face, sighs and sighs and sighs. Fuck it. He’s getting zucchinis and eggplants, too. It’s going to be vegetable city in his dad stomach. He’ll be so healthy he’ll run for another tenure as Sheriff. Wait no.

“Scott didn’t want a party, Liam.”

The unmistakable sound of a joint being lit reaches Stiles through the phone. “Oh, come on, man. Everybody says that!” Liam’s voice comes in, muffled by smoke. “Who wouldn’t want a stripper?”

Lots of people. But Stiles feels that arguments would be lost on Liam. “Liam”, he says with his most disapproving voice. He doesn’t quite manage Sheriff levels of disapproving. Puffing answers him.

“Liam!” he calls again.

“Yeah?”

He sounds high already. God fucking dammit.

“Can you cancel the party?”

“No way, man!” Liam answers, indignant. “It’ll be dope! My friend Jason said he can get us a bouncy castle. And you did hear me say “stripper”, right?”

Stiles considers throwing his phone in the middle of the tomatoes. But he doesn’t. Because he loves his friend.

“Ok, fine.” He answers curtly. “Where is it?”

“My house, bro!” Liam answers happily. He sighs into the phone. “I’m so happy you’re in, dude. You know, Scott considers you his best friend.”

Stiles hangs up on him.

He grabs his carrots, zucchinis and eggplants, adds fucking leek because why not at this point, some eggs, and coffee, a lot of coffee, too much coffee. While he’s queuing at the counter, he texts Scott.

**6:38PM You know Liam’s throwing you a bachelor party this Friday, right?**

Barely a minute later, an answer comes.

**6:37PM Yeah bro, I know :)**

**6:37PM He texted me about it a few days ago, asking for weed**

**6:38PM Probably thought he was texting his dealer lol**

Stiles rolls his eyes. He texts back.

**6:39PM Expect a bouncy castle. And a stripper.**

Scott’s answer pops up almost immediately.

**6:39PM A bouncy castle? So COOL XD XD XD**

Ugh. All his friends suck.

 

**Eight years ago**

Every time his dad drops him off at the McCalls he tells him: “don’t bother Derek. Let him be.” And, because he’s truly a hellspawn, he considers it every time. Go and bother the new kid. Just For Fun. But Stiles fundamentally doesn’t want anything to do with the new kid. He wants to get up to shenanigans with Scott, eat Cheetos and lasagna, fall asleep halfway through the Lord of the Rings trilogy Director’s cut DVD box set. He doesn’t want to talk to him or see him or be aware of him. For all he cares, the new kid is an unwanted guest in the McCall house and he’ll be out of there soon enough.

Of course he feels bad for Derek.

Stiles’ only lost his mom and he’s in more pain than he could ever imagine. He can’t help but wonder how Derek must feel like. He’s not a total monster, he knows he’s supposed to feel empathy for the new kid. But he needs the new kid to know, too, that Stiles has something going on here, that he was here first. That he’s the original broken kid left for the McCalls to fix. Stiles just doesn’t share well. And he needs this. He needs it desperately.

So he just pretends Derek isn’t there, and nothing has changed. Which is pretty easy most of the time, because the new kid spends almost all of his time shut up in the spare room. It took a whole week for Stiles to catch a glimpse of him for the first time. A tall, dark, surly kid. Older. Nothing special about him, really. Just a kid.

But the problem is, Derek is the only thing Scott wants to talk about. He makes big puppy eyes at Stiles and tells him every little scrap of information he managed to gather about Derek Hale. It doesn’t help that Scott is not a particularly observant person on the whole, so his intel is pretty meager. And boring, because he repeats everything a _million_ times. Stiles just wanted to play GTA and raid his fridge, dang it.

“He doesn’t smile”, Scott tells time for the bajillion time, pausing the game. “But I’ve never seen him cry, either. He just stays in his room.” Pah. _His room_. It’s not his room, after just a couple of weeks. It’s the _guest room_. For _guests_. Scott seems to think Derek Hale is going to stay forever, but the guy’s sixteen. He’ll get emancipated by the state and leave the McCalls in no time. That’s what Stiles would do if he was him, anyway.

“And I’ve never heard him speak, either”, Scott continues wonderingly, oblivious to Stiles’ grimace of distaste. “Maybe he’s gone mute from shock?” Scott asks, turning to Stiles. Stiles shrugs, pops a Cheeto into his mouth. He should wear a t-shirt that spells “I don’t care”. But he’d get in trouble with the press, probably.

Thankfully or sadly, depending on how you look at it, Scott doesn’t need any input from him to keep on investigating Derek Hale’s character.

“He goes to school though”, he tells Stiles conspiratorially. “My dad drives him and picks him up every day. Mom met with his principal and everything.” He holds up his hands, palms up, like he just proved an important point. Stiles tries to unpause the game, but Scott has the main console.

The thought makes his mouthful of Cheetos taste bad. When Stiles’ mom died, he was off school for almost three weeks. Derek Hale missed school for what, three days? That’s so… weird. Yeah, the guy’s definitely a weirdo. And a nerd, probably.

Or maybe Stiles’ the weak one. The guy survived his whole family’s death, and less than a week later he went back to his life. Stiles’ dad was drunk for a full two weeks after the funeral. Stiles didn’t shower or change clothes for at least ten days. They couldn’t talk or look at each other. Stiles used to ride his bike all the way to the McCall to beg for some lasagna when he went hungry. He couldn’t bring himself to eat the homemade food left by his mom in the freezer.

The Stilinski men were a total mess. Why is Derek Hale so stoic?

Scott is still stroking his non-existent beard, thinking of the stranger in the guest room. Stiles steals his console from his lap, unpauses the game, ignoring Scott’s indignant “hey!”

Whatever. Enough thinking about Derek Hale.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading, kudosing and commenting!

**Present day**

He lurches forward, wrenched from his thoughts. He hits the steering wheel with a thump. Ow. He looks up, testing the tenderness of his neck. The light is still on red. He turns around delicately, peeks through the back of the Jeep. A pristine white Prius is stopped right behind him. Way too close behind him.

He’s just been rear-ended by a Prius. He squints at the person behind the wheel. Painted nails on dainty hands. Sunglasses. Strawberry blond hai- son of a bitch. He unbuckles his seat belt and throws his door open, strides to the Prius’ driver’s side. He knocks on the window. And knocks again.

“Come on, Lydia.”

Finally, the window buzzes down.

The point of Lydia Martin’s nose pokes out of the car. “What can I do for you, Stilinski.”

Stiles flails his arms, pointing at his car. “Has everyone in this town lost it?” he asks no one in particular. He redirects his query toward Lydia. “Why did you hit my car?”

He sees one perfectly shaped eyebrow rise from behind the sunglasses.

“Oh. Was that your car?” she says, all feigned indifference, and honestly, if she wasn’t engaged to his very best friend in the world, his brother for all intents and purposes, Stiles would get down on one knee and propose marriage right here, right now.

Lydia Martin is truly the queen of everything and Stiles is but her humble subject. But she can’t _ever_ know that.

“Lydia!” he yells. She smirks. He’s so attracted to her right now.

“Fine, Stilinski”, she says like he’s a roach and she magnanimously decided not to run him over. “Always so dramatic, god”, she titters. “It’s barely a scratch, don’t worry.” She tilts her head, taps a finger on her chin in fake thought. “Tell you what, come have dinner with me and Scott tonight at the house, and all will be forgiven.”

There it is. A ploy. A ruse. A subterfuge.

Stiles is beside himself with rage and despair. He does the only thing he can: he admits defeat.

He sighs, hangs his head. “What time?” he asks in a monotone.

She smiles that self-satisfied smile that Stiles spent a good deal of his teenage years adoring.

“7pm sharp”, she answers pleasantly. “Don’t be late.”

Without another word, she throws her car in reverse, swerves elegantly to avoid him, and is out of sight in a few seconds, going 50 on a 20, while Stiles is still standing in the middle of the road next to his car, mouth gaping, trying to piece it all back together while examining the damages done to his beloved baby Roscoe.

  


**Eight years ago**

It’s a trap.

Scott invited him to play video games, that was fishy. Stiles usually shows up uninvited, like a parasite. And the second he got there, Scott insisted he didn’t feel like Mario Kart anymore. He wanted to do some practice pitches in the garden with Stiles. With _Stiles_.

Stiles has never, and never will, catch a ball. He can throw one, as long as no one cares where it’s supposed to go. He’s incapable of coordinating his limbs toward a small moving object. His brain is not like other people’s (it is far superior, thanks Scott), and it cannot compute such data. Nope.

He’s the last person anyone would have practice baseball with. Scott knows that. He’s known that since they were seven and both their dads thought it would be fun if they integrated the softball peewee team. Stiles never thought he’d fail his dad so young. But fail he did. Oh god. So much failing. He closes his eyes tight against the onset of unpleasant memories.

Anyway. His point is, Scott wanting to play baseball with him is extremely suspicious. And Scott sucks at being suspicious. So when he casually suggests as they’re raiding the fridge that maybe Derek should join them, Stiles knows. He’s setting Stiles up. The sneak. The traitor.

Stiles shrugs and harrumphs and makes his displeasure known, to no avail. Soon enough he’s sitting down on the grass in the McCall garden, watching Derek Hale manipulate a bat with precision and reverence, sending Scott brief words of praise even as Scott fails to send a single ball his way.

Stiles is stuffing his face with Cheetos, boiling with rage. He knows that, in the past months, Scott and Derek have warmed up to each other, developed a bond, blah blah fucking put a bullet through Stiles’ brain already. He’s heard Melissa talk to his dad about it while she was delivering a plate of lasagna to their house.

How Derek has come so far in the past months, how he’s not talking much yet, but he helps her cook in the evening and keeps her company when she comes home from a shift. How he and Scott started getting along really well and he’s starting to fit into their family and how they’re all very proud and happy and the Hales would be glad to know their son is such an-

“asshole”, Stiles muttered under his breath, masked it as a cough when his dad glanced at him.

It’s fine, okay? He already got the Dad Eyebrows and the “don’t be a shithead, be nice” talk. About a million times.

Whatever. Derek Hale is an asshole. He might have fooled everyone around them, but Stiles knows. He’s seen and heard things. He’s smart. He’ll prove it, to everyone. That he’s right about the guy. And they’ll be sorry. Probably.

Scott throws a ball so hard he loses his balance and falls face first on the ground. Stiles laughs so hard he almost chokes on a Cheeto.

Derek hurries forward to help Scott up, trying to contain his smile. Scott scowls at both of them, red in the face.

“Like you could do better, spazzface”, Scott throws at Stiles, cutting. It’s meant as a way to relieve Scott of his embarrassment, a rib, an insult they can pass around for hours without escalating it to a full argument, a game of thirteen-year-old shithead barbs that never means anything. Except this time.

Because this time, Derek lets out a quick bark of a laugh, and Stiles’ already boiling rage flares up and overcomes him.

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Hale”, Stiles spits at Derek. “Why are you even here anyway? Don’t you have some more moping around to do in the guest bedroom?”

Stiles feels a kind of savage joy seeing the smile wiped off Derek, whose face shuts down. One second he’s a laughing teenager, the next he’s a wax statue, face set, eyes dead.

“Dude”, Scott interferes, “come on. That was out of line, even for you.”

It’s a testament to Stiles’ anger that he discards his bag of Cheetos before jumping to his feet, arms held out in front of him. “Why are you always defending him?” Stiles yells. “Why is he here, Scott? You don’t _need_ him!”

Scott recoils from Stiles like he’s been slapped. On the contrary, Derek sheds his static state for one of true, scary anger. He strides toward Stiles, stops a feet from his face to point a finger right under Stiles’ nose. “What”, he says, voice deep with fury, “is your damn problem?”

Stiles throws his head back in fake laughter, mirroring the moment of mirth he felt just a few seconds ago, and which feels incredibly far away now. He gets right into Derek’s space, not backing out an inch, ready to throw down. Oh, he’s so ready for this, he’s been ready since day one, maybe even before Derek happened to them. He’s been ready for the carefully crafted house of cards of sanity and comfort he’s built with the remnants of his destroyed family to crumble down around him, to leave him here standing, ready to throw punches and fight for his life.

He can’t see, for some reason, that he’s fighting a mirror, that Derek is who he was barely a year ago, that they have the same wounds, they’re licking the same scars, they hurt the same way. Stiles cannot see the pain and fear behind Derek’s rage, cannot identify it as his own. And even if he could, he would deny it.

“You! You’re my problem, Hale!”, Stiles yells, mad. “You come here and play perfect son, ready to steal other people’s family, no regard for those who were here before you! There was a life here before you came along, ever considered that? Why’d you have to waltz in and stomp all over it?”

“My family is dead!” Derek roars.

“So’s my mom!”, Stiles shouts back.

They look at each other, breathing heavily, hatred etched into Stiles’ face, something like disgust on Derek’s.

Derek sighs harshly through his nostrils, shakes his head like a dog shakes water off his fur, like he could shake off his anger. He looks back at Stiles with a hard, piercing stare. “You”, he says in a deep, calm voice, “you have problems, kid.”

He stomps off, back into the house, leaving Stiles bereft and hurt. He doesn’t know why, but it stings, what Derek said. It stings worse than getting beaten up or being insulted. His face is burning with shame, his eyes prickle dangerously. He looks down.

“Why did you have to say all that crap to him?” Scott says in a small, upset voice.

Stiles sniffs, eyes trained on the ground. “It’s not fair, Scott. He doesn’t belong here.”

“He’s my brother.”

Scott says it like it’s a simple fact of nature, an absolute truth, something unchangeable. Stiles kinda wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

“He’s family now”, Scott continues in a small, sure voice, barely a hint of blame in his tone. “You have to accept that.”

Stiles swallows. He wants to tell Scott he used to call Stiles his brother, but he doesn’t trust his voice. He guesses everything has changed now.

He leaves Scott standing there in the garden, runs out of the house and to his bike, rides at full speed all the way to his house, all the while pretending his vision isn’t blurry with tears. He just needs glasses or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lydia Martin is a goddess <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Present day**

He lets himself in, hollering “I’m here, hold your fire!” as he shrugs off his coat and toes off his shoes. Scott and Lydia live in a loft in a formerly abandoned factory in the old industrial district, turned gentrified neighborhood by the hip young tech-workers of Northern California. Huge windows flood the big space with light. Part of the space is taken by a giant desk and a whole wall of bookshelves. Lydia’s corner. Every time Stiles Skypes them, more books litter every open area in the loft. End tables, the kitchen island, the floor. If he didn’t fear retribution, Stiles would tell Lydia she has a hoarding problem. To her face. But he’s not an idiot, so he doesn’t.

He makes his way to the kitchen where, predictably, he finds an apron-clad Scott hunched over pots and pans while Lydia sits crossed-legged on the kitchen island behind him, a book in hand.

“Hey buddy”, Scott calls warmly. Lydia lifts her eyes from her book and bestows upon him the great privilege of a smile. He hurries forward, claps Scott on the shoulder and hugs Lydia, lifting her from the counter and twirling her around for good measure. She gives a pearly little laugh before hitting him on the shoulder, demanding to be put down.

Stiles feels all warm inside. Dammit. These people have some sort of demonic power over him. This tiny little redhead rear-ended his car a mere four hours ago, and now he’d dismantle an entire empire for her, just because she smiled at him.

Scott’s making an elaborate vegetarian dish that smells heavenly. He tells Stiles proudly that he’s the one who cooks most often at the station because he’s the best at it, as he passes a wooden spoon to Stiles so he can taste the peanut sauce. The peanut sauce is a fucking delight.

As Stiles helps Lydia sets the table, they talk wedding arrangements and she catches him up on Beacon Hills gossip. There is not much happening right now, the big news in town seems to be their wedding and how it will hold the town hostage, as the ceremony and subsequent party is happening in the town square, thanks to the help of a very benevolent Sheriff and Lydia’s dad greasing the greedy palms of a few elected officials.

Stiles doesn’t even bat an eyelash at that. Lydia gets what Lydia wants. The sooner you get used to it, the better for you. A lesson Whittemore sadly never learned.

They dig into the amazing plates of food as Lydia asks Stiles about Berkeley and his thesis. He launches into a complicated description of his premise while Lydia nods agreeably, following every word with interest even though he knows for a fact she has never touched an instrument in her whole life. Scott looks at them happily as he munches on his food, happy to be providing for his favorite people.

Stiles’ heart keeps melting for these people, his family. He misses the raw sense of purpose he feels at college, like his life has a precise, defined goal and he’s becoming the person he was always supposed to be, all edges out and made of at least sixty percent coffee, but the sense of belonging he feels around Scott, his dad and Lydia is so absolute it twists his stomach a little bit.

He’s at home here, between Scott and Lydia’s squabbling over using chopsticks or a fork to eat rice, Lydia’s engagement ring glinting in the warm light of the dozen bare light bulbs overhead.

The conversation eventually turns back to the wedding.

“You should come to the rental place with me tomorrow”, Scott tells Stiles, spitting bits of rice all over his plate. “So they can make the adjustments to the suits.”

Stiles makes a face at him. “I would but _someone_ ”, he looks pointedly at Lydia, “rear-ended my car today. I gotta take it to the mechanic all the way across town.”

Scott frowns at him. “Why don’t you take it to Derek’s? It’s much closer to your dad’s place than Al’s.”

Ugh. Stiles knew it would come to this. Stiles has had this exact discussion with every member of his family since he started driving his mom’s car, shortly after Derek started his apprenticeship at Joe’s. He tries to buy himself time, chooses his words carefully, by taking a big mouthful of bell peppers in peanut sauce. Damn that’s spicy.

Lydia throws him a Look as she picks up her wine glass. “Derek took over for Joe, y’know. The shop is doing great”, she says, her eyes scanning Stiles’ face shrewdly. Damn. That’s the thing about Lydia, isn’t it? Even her schemes have schemes. He thought she wrecked her car to get him to know who’s boss, but no. It was about Derek.

He masticates for longer than strictly necessary, keeping his face carefully blank. He’s been down this road many many times, he knows bringing up his and Derek’s- feud? Continual disagreement? Antagonism? That thing where they hate each other and want the other to never exist ever? Anyway, this stuff between them always causes fights and hurt feelings and wounded puppy looks from Scott. Stiles has got avoiding the whole thing down to an art by now.

“I like Al’s”, Stiles says as pleasantly as he can, while loading his plate up with more rice. “He’s taken good care of the Jeep for years.” He shrugs, all feigned nonchalance. “I don’t want him to lose my business”, he smiles self-deprecatingly. “He’s made a fortune thanks to Roscoe and me.”

Scott chuckles good-naturedly. Lydia looks down at her plate, staying pointedly silent. Oof. Crisis averted.

Lydia clears her throat, throws a look at Scott, whose eyes widen comically. “Oh!” He sits up straighter in his chair, reaches out a hand to take Lydia’s. Both of them turn Very Serious faces to him. Stiles stomach plummets toward his socks. What now?

“We have something to ask you”, Scott says in his Serious Business voice, one Stiles is definitely not used to hearing.

Stiles swallows his rice with some difficulty. He dabs his mouth with his napkin to delay whatever this is (probably something Not Good) for a few more seconds. He looks at both of them, their linked hands, the almost grave look on their faces. It dawns on him.

“Oh my god”, he says. “Are you pregnant?” he directs at Lydia accusatorily. “Am I gonna be a godfather?” He leans forwards over his plate, points a finger at Scott. “I gotta be, bro! I’ll invoke Blood Pact Number II, don’t think I won’t!”

Lydia rolls her eyes at him disdainfully. “I am not _pregnant_ , Stiles.” She says the word “pregnant” like she would say “cockroach”. Or “off-the-rack”.

Stiles lets himself fall backwards on his chair. “Thank God”, he says truthfully. “A shotgun wedding?” he addresses Lydia. “That would have been tacky.”

Sadly for him, Lydia is sitting close enough at the table to lean forward and cuff him over the head. She leans back and sends a look at Scott that says “this guy? really?”, but Scott is still holding on to her hand and smiling benignly at them, glowing like he is in fact pregnant with triplets and full of love for his budding family. It’s kinda gross to look at.

“We want to ask you to perform at our wedding- before the ceremony, actually”, Scott tells Stiles like the whole “shotgun wedding” bit never happened. Lydia nods her assent.

Oh. Well. Shit. Stiles didn’t see this one coming. Since he’s arrived in this town, he’s been blindsided by everything his family’s thrown at him. He’s losing his edge.

“Uhm”, he says eloquently. “I’m not sure guys. I- didn’t think you- I didn’t prepare anyth-”

“Some of your original work?” Scott interrupts him. “Please, Stiles?” He looks at Lydia for reassurance that she’s on the same page.

Lydia nods at him, looks at Stiles. “We love the last couple of songs you sent us. They’re great. We’d love it if you could sing one of those as I walk down the aisle. It could replace your best man speech, if you want.”

Stiles shakes his head. He’s written his best man speech for Scott’s wedding when they were sixteen. Sure, he wrote it out of spite, to show the world what a sucky friend Scott was, after he ditched him again to go hang out with Allison, but he’d got choked up halfway through and ended up writing some deep, heartfelt, poetic, truly mushy things. He might have to change some things, but he’s pretty sure most of it will stand the test of times.

“Guys, I’m flattered, really, but I don’t even have anything to play on, I-”

Lydia is done with his bullshit. “There’s a guitar in the trunk of your Jeep, Stilinski, I saw it when I rear-ended you. Quit finding ways not to do this and say yes.” She points a red-painted nail right at his chest. “You’re the best man, you’re supposed to cater to our every whim. You’re a musician. We want you to perform. Smile, and say thank you.”

Stiles sputters for a moment, knowing he just lost this battle. He sighs, hangs his head. “Fine”, he concedes, “I’ll do the songs.”

Lydia smiles triumphantly, pats his hand. “Good. Thank you Stiles.”

Stiles glances up, catches the slight shake of Scott’s shoulders. His best friend is reveling in the pain inflicted on him by his fiancée. He hates these people. Hates them.

  


**Seven years ago**

This is the worst.

He wasn’t even really _doing anything_ , okay. Whittemore had bragged at school that he and his parents were going away to Vegas for the weekend, to see Celine Dion or JLo or Cirque du Whatever. Stiles had thought “uh. empty rich mansion for a weekend. neat.” Listen, any kid with two functioning neurons and not much to lose would have done as he did.

He would have told Scott what he was planning to do, usually. But since the whole baseball afternoon debacle, things have been, uhm. Things have been weird. Scott has somehow decided to pretend it never happened and he’s behaving like usual at school, but he’s studiously avoiding the topic of Derek. And since all he really wants to talk about is his baseball training, it gets pretty quiet between them. Stiles hasn’t set foot in the McCall house since it happened, and he’s not even sure he wants to go back, ever. So yeah, things are weird.

Stiles had decided on a solo mission. That’s how he rolled.

He’d told his dad he would be at the McCalls during his night shift. He told the McCalls nothing because why would they care? They had two “sons” now to take care of. He put a black hoodie over black jeans and he even found cool black gloves in an old box of winter clothes. He took some seriously awesome selfies in ninja pose before remembering this was a Serious Mission and he was Not a Kid anymore.

He rode his bike all the way to the posh, pretentious, all white and perfectly square Whittemore house. And then he picked the lock. Child’s play. He spent about two minutes exploring the living room with the flashlight he’d found in the garage when his dad showed up. His dad. With two other squad cars.

Silent alarm. So stupid.

Stiles should’ve seen it coming. The alarm called the Sheriff station automatically in case of B&E. They’d thought it’d be robbers. It was a goth, teenage miscreant. The Sheriff’s son.

After that, well. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of disappointed sighs, a lot of watching his dad through a window try to convince a pissed-his-Celine-Dion-trip-got-cancelled-for-a-delinquent, pretentious-lawyer-type Whittemore Sr not to press charges against Stiles. It was just a lot of waiting for his sentence, feeling like a loser, and berating himself for letting his dad down, again. That was all he was good for, anyway. And his mom wasn’t there anymore to make it better, so. Yeah.

Currently, that’s what the shrink is trying to get him to talk about. His mom.

It’s a new shrink, not the quiet, young woman he saw when his mom was in the final stages of cancer. She was nice, she let him play with the strings of his hoodie and not talk sometimes when he didn’t want to. She was the one who told his dad he should get tested for ADHD, and that had led to the sweet sweet Adderall. Bless Dr Khan and wherever she fucked off to when Beacon Hills became too much of a swarm of insufferable mentally ill teens for her.

This new one is an older guy. He has a way of being condescending to kids because he thinks that makes him more approachable. It’s Stiles second session with the dude, and he doesn’t like him much. But the mandatory psychologist sessions are part of the Grounding.

The Grounding of a lifetime, holy shit. For a whole month. Stiles is so grounded it’s not even funny. No leaving home except for school, where he’s being dropped off and picked up by a Sheriff’s deputy or the Sheriff himself, no matter what that does to his reputation. No computer, no video games, no TV, no phone. No sodas. No bicycle, not even in the backyard.

Scott’s allowed to visit once a week on Fridays, for two hours, but that’s only after Melissa petitioned on Scott’s behalf to the Sheriff in a rather insistent way. Stiles is responsible for making dinner every night, and no ordering in. And finally, mandatory shrink appointments every week, for the foreseeable future. That one might have been the sine qua non condition for Mr Whittedouche, Esq, not to press charges. It was that or military school. Whatever. It’s still a pain in the ass.

“Did you and your father become closer after your mother’s death?” New Guy asks Stiles in his patented monotone shrink voice. That voice says “I try not to cause any kind of emotion in my patients because I am afraid they might jump and try to bite me”. Really inspiring confidence.

Stiles rolls his eyes with his whole head, leans back on the comfy, plush chair. He’d give his liver to be able to steal the guy’s phone lying between them on the table, and check what’s going on on the Internet, just for one fucking second. He’s probably missed so much stuff already. The game he and Scott wanted to buy came out last Saturday, he’s sure Scott bought it. He’s sure it’s amazing.

It’s been twelve days of this, and he’s going insane. If he’d known spending two minutes in Jerkmore’s living room would get him into so much trouble, he’d have stayed home and marathoned Die Hard. And his dad doesn’t get it. Living with ADHD without effectual distractions is like... It’s like nothing. It’s hell. Even with diligently doing his homework under heavy surveillance from the poor deputy his dad assigned to the task that day and meal prep, Stiles sees the afternoons and evenings stretch before him like a cold, windy desert.

He’s cleaned the whole house once and the kitchen twice, sorted his mom’s photo albums by chronological order, then by color. He’s reread almost all the books in his room already, is this close to asking his dad to lend him some of his. He’s bored. Oh my god he’s so bored. Insanely bored. Bored bored bored bored bored. So bored he might take up knitting. But he’s pretty sure his dad would confiscate the needles anyway.

“Stiles”, Nice Shrink Dude Who’s Just Like You Buddy says. From his tone, it’s not the first time he’s said it. Great. Stiles zoned out again. He’s been doing it more and more, cruelly deprived from input from the outside world. His life is so pitiful at the moment, he should move into the cupboard under the stairs and call his dad Vernon.

Stiles nods at Elbow Patches and Horn-Rimmed Glasses, signifying he’s back online, but that his interest into the proceedings is limited.

Hipster Baby Goatee sighs, leans his elbow patches on his knees, trying to engage Stiles in Real Talk. “Do you zone out often?”

Stiles nods, shrugs a bit in a “what can you do” way. “It happens sometimes. Adderall helps, but these days I’m not, uhm, challenged enough, I guess? So it’s been happening more.”

Stiles keeps a very precise rhythm of answering one in three questions truthfully, so he won’t be labelled “uncooperative” and Receding Hairline won’t tell on him to his dad. It’s a balancing act, but it’s sadly the only entertainment available to him these days.

Gotta make your own fun, as they say.

Bitten Nails nods thoughtfully, makes a note in his super secret notebook. Stiles imagines he’s writing “weirdo” with three questions marks after it. He looks up at Stiles, smiles at him, which means he just noticed on the clock that their imparted hour is soon coming to an end. “Do you have any coping mechanisms, other than medication?” he asks.

Stiles strokes his non-existent goatee, hoping to make Acne and Dandruff here self-conscious. “You mean, besides causing mayhem?”

Dead Eyes cocks his head, jots down something in his notebook. Oh no, Stiles’ done it. He’s gone and been uncooperative again. He’s going to pay for this with the absence of pizza, he can tell. “Do you like music at all?” Been Wearing The Same Sneakers For Twelve Years asks.

Stiles is thrown off by the question. Does he mean relaxing music? Whale noises and stuff?

“Depends”, Stiles settles for.

“On what?” Boxers Not Briefs asks.

“On what music you’re talking about.”

Can’t Believe I Studied Seven Years For This smiles, somehow satisfied with Stiles’ answer. That has… never happened before.

“I’m talking about any kind of music”, Probably Sad And Alone elaborates. “Have you ever tried playing an instrument?”

Stiles is not sure he likes, or even knows, where this is going. “No? Well, I guess we had flute in 6th grade for like a month?” It was an unmitigated disaster, as is the natural order of things.

Lays Awake In Bed Thinking About All The Headcases He Failed To Cure notes even more stuff in his little notebook, looking really satisfied by what Stiles is saying. It’s confusing and downright weird. Stiles wants to leave.

“Is it time yet?” he asks in a carefully crafted, politely interested voice.

Never Been Kissed looks at him, smiling that creepy shrink smile. “I think we can do great things together.” Stiles recoils slightly. Is this guy a pedo? He doesn’t look like a pedo, but then again, he’s a Sheriff’s son. He’s Seen things.

“What kind of things?” Stiles asks reluctantly.

Eighty-six Percent Chance I’m In Love With My Mother smiles what he probably thinks is an Enigmatic Smile. It showcases the yellow in his teeth. “Oh, you’ll see. That’s all the time we have for today, I’m afraid.”

Oh hell no. This guy is definitely a pedo.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw (a tiny bit) domestic violence

**Present day**

The morning after his dinner at Scott and Lydia’s, Stiles gets his emergency acoustic guitar from the trunk of his damaged car. He brings it up into his room, dusts it up a little. It’s a nice little Fender Parlor in mahogany. He bought it secondhand from an exiting senior when he was a freshman. Not as nice as the Gibson waiting for him patiently at home, but she has a deep, melodic ring to her. Stiles takes her for a blues-y spin. Halfway through, the B string literally explodes under Stiles’ finger with a nice little pop.

Okay then. He’s good for a trip to Bernie’s.

Bernie Herman’s music shop is just about the only place where you can find quality music instruments in Beacon Hills. It doubles as an old-school music shop, full of dusty vinyls and collector cassette tapes. The man himself looks like a sad, elderly accountant and sounds like someone who spent most of the 70’s and 80’s (and 90’s) smoking marijuana.

Stiles first set foot in his shop when he was fourteen, after Elbow Patches and Oral Fixation had convinced both Stilinski men that musical therapy might be good for Stiles’ uhm... obsessive tendencies. (What he actually said to the Sheriff was that learning to read sheet music was probably the only thing preventing teenage delinquent Stiles from becoming a supervillain, but John Stilinski likes to pretend that never happened.)

Stiles came out of that first visit with a hundred-buck acoustic guitar, the very one still gathering dust in his childhood bedroom. He’d also met, for the first time in his life, true genius and wasted potential.

Over the years, Stiles and Bernie developed a weird kind of friendship based on genuine admiration for the other’s weirdness, and a shared passion for truly beautiful guitars. Their music taste diverged wildly, but they could still make every other client of Bernie’s shop flee while listening at top volume to Dark Side of the Moon and debating wildly its mastery (Stiles’ opinion) or it’s overhype (Bernie’s).

The fact that the building is still standing and Bernie’s is still in business is a testament to his ability to withstand decades of ups and downs by selling weed to teenagers. Stiles sets foot in the dusty shop. Its distinct patchouli smell assaults his memory. God, this place has practically not changed, if for the new piano displayed in the window to the left of the entrance.

He makes his way to the counter, looking around at the mess of album covers and rock band biographies covering the walls, checking out the display of acoustic and electric guitars as he goes. The store is all dust and grime, but all the instruments are shiny and spotless, brand new. Adored. This is why Stiles loves this place. Bernie loves music, weed, and nothing else. That’s abundantly clear to anyone to knows what a true lover of music looks like. And Stiles knows, believe him. Even before he spent almost four years in Morisson Hall, he knew.

A dark form lurks behind the sticky counter, blasting Hole’s Live Through This through the store speakers. Stiles puts his elbows on the counter, knocks on wood, keeping rhythm with Patty Schemel’s drums.

“Hey Bern”, he calls to the hunched mass of pungent accountant.

The pungent mass de-hunches. It squints at Stiles, jumps a little bit.

“Stilinski!” Bernie calls with a voice that seems to come from the great beyond. “What’chu doing here, kid? Rn’tchu s’posed to be at that fancy school of yours?” He crooks a stumpy smile at Stiles. “Got tired of learning about Brahms and Schubert, huh? Back to real rock’n roll?”

Stiles smiles at his wreck of a friend. “I’m back in town for my friend’s wedding. Remember Scott?”

Bernie shakes his head, swatting at Stiles’ question like a fly. Real life doesn’t matter to him.

“What’chu playing on these days?”

Stiles smiles. Straight to business. “An acoustic Fender. Mahogany. It has a nice natural amplification. But I need new strings.” Bernie nods his understanding, points Stiles at the hanger with all kinds of strings displayed.

“Still got the Gibson?”

Bernie sold him the Gibson in Senior year of high school. They might both have cried a little bit as the beautiful guitar passed hands.

Stiles nods readily. “Yeah, it’s at Berkeley with me.”

Bernie grunts. “Could have brought her for a visit.”

Stiles shrugs. “Can’t risk it. You might try and keep her.”

Bernie lets out a lung infection of a laugh as Stiles hurries over the display of strings, selects a pack, takes a spare one for good measure.

“Hey kid”, Bernie calls from behind his counter. “Wanna try out the Yamaha in the window? I only got it a few weeks ago, special order.”

Stiles turns to the beautiful black piano displayed on a small raised platform. It is very beautiful, shiny and sleek. A small beauty with a spotless keyboard. Stiles’ fingers tingle. He’s never been very good with impulse control. When he sees something he wants, he’s gotta try it, wreck it until it’s no good for anyone else.

“You sure, Bern?” he asks, eyes set on the keys.

Bernie coughs at least half a lung out, stops Courtney Love mid-word as she tells people to go for credit in the straight world, won’t they try. He nods at Stiles readily.

“Go ‘head. It’s paid eighty percent in advance anyway. The guy’ll pick it up in May or sum’in.”

Stiles shrugs, like he’s not that into it.

“Come on”, Bernie crows, egging him on. “Play us some fancy piece from that pretentious school of yours.”

Stiles smiles crookedly at him. He’s very into it. It’s been four very long days without a piano and he hasn’t gone this long without one in… maybe six years? Except for that one week visiting his Nana in Poland, and she bullied the local priest into letting him try out the church organ.

He shrugs off his hoodie, sits on the little velvet stool placed in front of it.

He places his hands on the keys, closes his eyes. Exhales. He presses his right index to the D key. Music seems to flow from his lungs to his fingertips, out of him. Sometimes music is physics. It’s precision and practice and applying the exact kind of pressure at the exact time, it’s a quick succession of chords, it’s a certain way to bend the wrists. It’s strength and knowing when to let go. It’s obscure black markings on sheet music, a particularly difficult riff he needs to spend hours breaking down. Sometimes music is just applying yourself and focusing and thinking and a complicated set of mechanics, of frequencies, of sounds mashed up together.

Sometimes music is emotion, it’s the oxygen in his lungs, it’s a flow of memories. It’s thought and hurt and absolution. Sometimes music is Stiles in his purest, best form. He lets his voice meld with the melody, breath leaving him. He hasn’t felt like himself since he set foot in this town. He’s free here, just him and his best, most faithful, enduring, accepting friends, in a place that saw him bloom into a whole new person. Words form on the tip of his tongue, expressing grief, or love, or freedom, or loss. They all might be the same thing.

On an exhale, he stumbles a bit on the keys, makes it work, transforms the song into something new, lighter. He matches the beat of his heart, calm, a quiet staccato. He smiles as he ends the melody on a last string of high notes. Silence rings loud around him as he breathes, letting the song run away from him, from this moment of truth. He opens his eyes, and is immediately punched in the gut. Through the glass window on his left, Derek Hale is standing, looking at him, eyes wide, mouth open, a full paper bag in his arms.

Stiles is frozen with his hands two inches over the keys, shoulders locked. He looks like a total moron. He blinks, and horror-struck Derek disappears. He blinks some more. He’s really gone. Hopefully, he was a mirage.

He breathes out slowly, letting his shoulder unlock. It was definitely a mirage. He turns to Bernie, who’s looking at him, elbows on the counter, chin on his hand. He smiles at Stiles.

“You’re getting good, kid. That wasn’t half bad”, he shrugs, “for a pretentious college song, anyway.”

Stiles heart is still doing the conga as he gets up from the stool. “Thanks, I think.” He waves vaguely toward the stacks of vinyls littering the counter. “What have you been listening to these days?”

Bernie proceeds to make him listen to all four albums of a 90’s French-Canadian band called Les Colocs, and though most of it is pretty good, by the time Stiles leaves the store with his guitar strings (“on the house”, Bernie insisted), he kinda wants to die. Ostie d’tabernac’. French is the _worst_.

  


**Seven years ago**

Stiles is in his room, pondering the fact of life itself, or like, thinking about clipping his toenails later maybe. He’s lying on his bed, staring fixedly at the crack in his ceiling. He might repaint the room, or change the placement of his furniture. For the second time this month. He taps the fingers of his left hand on the comforter. The tips of it are raw, sore, almost bloody. Delicate. His dad made him take a break at around 9pm, citing the delicate ears of their neighbors. Stiles is so bored he could literally die from it.

Scott was supposed to show up yesterday, bring him a few books that had passed his dad veto. They were supposed to talk about Lydia and Jackson’s break up, which had rocked the school at lunch Thursday. Stiles hadn’t been able to loiter after school close to the jocks or the girls to overhear exactly what had happened, because his police detail had arrived.

He’d sent Scott as lookout, and was eagerly awaiting the details on Friday, but Scott hadn’t shown up at school, or later at Stiles’ house. Stiles had wondered briefly if Whitteface had found Scott eavesdropping and killed him, but he didn’t look even remotely satisfied that morning, so he couldn’t have.

By the time the clock hit 6pm, Stiles had been seriously worried. Scott was almost never sick and he’d been fine the day before. And since he didn’t have a phone, he couldn’t contact him to know what was up. No contact from Scott at all, not even on previously agreed periods of time, that was an unusually harsh punishment. Stiles had trouble breathing by the time his dad made it home and the conspicuous squad car parked in front of the house was released from its surveillance duty.

He asked and begged and pleaded and was just a general nuisance until his dad accepted to call Scott’s mom for him. He was such an incredible bother that his dad sent him to wait for the end of the phone call on the living room couch. He was vibrating out of his skin when his dad came into the room, a complicated expression on his face.

::

“There’s been an incident, buddy”, his dad says. _Buddy_. Stiles’ heart freezes in his chest.

His dad sits down next to him on the couch. “Don’t worry, Scott is ok.” Stiles’ whole body deflates. Good god. Way to make a kid have a heart attack, dad.

“What’s going on?” Stiles asks in a shakier voice than he would have liked.

His dad wraps an arm against his shoulders. “Rafa- Mr. McCall is going to take some time away from his family for a while.”

Stiles lets that information wash over him, staring into the void. He confronts what he knows his dad means when he says words like “taking some time away” and “incident”. He clears his throat.

“Because of the alcohol?”

His dad looks at him like he hasn’t looked in a while. Like he’s seeing his son again. It stings a little.

“It’s one of the reasons, yes, son.” He hesitates. “But you shouldn’t- say that to Scott.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. His dad looks annoyed. Here, back to normal. “I know, dad. I’m not stupid.”

His dad uses the arm around his shoulder to pull him closer to his body, in a sort of half hug. The badge on his breast pocket pokes Stiles in the shoulder. “I know you’re not, son.” He chuckles. “I sometimes wish you were, though. Less grey hairs, probably.”

Stiles puts his arms around his dad’s middle, squeezes. He’s pretty lucky, all things considered.

::

Raindrops tap against his window, reminding him the weather is just as depressed as he is and maybe, just maybe, it’s sort of a blessing he can’t go outside right now. He sighs, turns over on his belly. Ughhhhh.

Heavier raindrops hit his window in quick succession, followed by the wind howling at him.

“Stiles!”

Wait. That is not the wind. He jerks upward, stumbles over to the window. The skies are as black and dry as his soul. It’s not raining at all. He pulls the window up, puts his head out feeling a strange kind of excitement at being even half outside like this. He’s breaking the rules. He’s a _rebel_ again. It feels so good.

“Stiles!” a voice stage-whispers below him. A familiar voice. He looks down, squints at the darkness enveloping the bushes around the house. He can barely make out the slight frame and curly mop of hair that is Scott, without a good look at his sunny smile. He’s lurking there, face turned up toward Stiles, outside his bedroom window. Stiles can’t help smiling like a fool.

“Should I take down my hair, or?” Stiles calls out to Scott. He ducks as a shower of pebbles rattle against the wall next to him. He lets out a bark of laughter.

“Oh Scotty-boy Scotty-boy”, Stiles exclaims, a hand on his heart, the other extended in front of him, grandly, “wherefore art thou Scotty-man?”

“Stiles!” Scott yelps, annoyed. “I’m freezing down here! Come let me in.”

“Fine”, Stiles calls. He sighs theatrically. “I thought you were more of a romantic, Scotty, really.”

“Get down here”, Scott yells.

Stiles walks down the stairs extra-careful. He’s pretty lucky there’s no light under his dad’s bedroom door. The old man sleeps like a log. He opens the front door for Scott and both of them creep back upstairs to Stiles’ room, with a small detour to the pantry for chocolate.

They settle on Stiles’ bed, make a big puppy pile out of themselves and pillows and blankets. They look at one another in the light provided by the moon outside, too chicken to switch on the light, in case Stiles’ dad feels the need for a midnight snack. They can barely discern the shape of each other in the dark, which makes it easier to tell secrets.

“Is that a guitar?” Scott asks, intrigued.

Right, Stiles forgot. He pats the bed blindly until he gets hold of the guitar’s neck, lifts it carefully off the bed and to the side, so Scott can sprawl on the bed.

“Yeah”, Stiles says, awkward. He feels caught out. He hadn’t really planned on telling Scott, or at least not yet. It’s not… defined yet, in his head. It’s just a thing he’s trying out. Blood pumps through his fingertips. “It’s, uh… it’s- the shrink thought it would be a good idea to try it out.”

Stiles can see Scott’s wide eyes even in the dark as he examines the guitar where Stiles left it. “Cool”, he says, impressed.

Stiles rolls his eyes for his own benefit. There’s truly nothing “cool” about what he does with the guitar right now, except wrecking international rock’n roll standards and making his fingers bloody and learning how truly deprived of rhythm he is. He decides to change the subject.

“Hey Scotty”, he starts, pats the air until he finds Scott’s shoulder. “My dad told me about…”, he chews on the word, shrugs. “You okay?”

Scott’s shoulder deflates under Stiles’ touch. He stays silent for a moment. Stiles waits him out.

“I’m okay”, he says. He shrugs.

“Mom told me this afternoon that she wants a divorce”, Scott whispers in a shaky voice. Stiles sucks in his breath, holds it. “She said she’s been wanting one for a few months, but she didn’t want to break-”, he stumbles on his words, “break up our family.” He sniffs suspiciously. Stiles lets out his breath as inconspicuous as he can. He bets it’s better if Scott kinda forgets that he’s there at all.

“But after last night, I guess she’s changed her mind”, Scott says in a small voice. “He left this morning.”

Stiles waits for Scott to keep saying things, but silence stretches between them, filling the darkness. He coughs a little before speaking, to alert Scott to his continued presence.

“What happened?”, he asks timidly.

Scott lets out a wet kind of laugh. “I don’t really know”, he admits, “I was kinda- out, I guess, for a big part of it.”

“What?”, Stiles shrieks, forgetting to control his volume. They both freeze, listening for the distinctive sounds of parental movement. None come.

“What?” Stiles whispers this time.

Scott sighs. He digs his phone from his back pocket, lights it up. He points it at his face, and Stiles finally sees it. Around his right eye, following the cheekbone, a huge bruise taking over the side of his face, his cheek swollen, tender looking. He lets out a soft gasp.

“Yup”, Scott says, closing his phone and tossing it somewhere on the bed. Scott launches into an as detailed explanation of the happenings at his house as he can manage.

Rafael McCall came home drunk. Too drunk. Scott heard him from his room, yelling, accusing his mom of screwing a doctor, saying he was tired of her staying overnight at the hospital. She was yelling too, trying to defend herself, saying she had to pick up more shifts because she couldn’t rely on him not to drink his salary away, that she had two kids to feed. He advanced on her, and Scott got scared he was gonna hit his mom, so he ran out of his room, put himself between his father and his mother. He yelled at his dad to stop and leave them alone, and his dad slapped him with the back of his hand, sending him flying right into the stairs handrail. Scott remembers the shock of hitting something solid, then nothing.

The rest of it is what his mom told him the next day. He was lying there like a puppet whose strings got cut and Melissa was yelling, scrambling to check if Scott was okay, and suddenly Derek was there, hoisting Rafael up by the cuff of his shirt, marching him to the door and throwing him out of the house. For a second, Melissa was too shocked to realize what had happened, but then, after she checked on Scott, she went over to the doorframe, where Derek was standing, staring Rafael down, almost daring him to come at him. Melissa put a hand on Derek’s shoulder, and told her husband to leave. She told him he would never lay a finger on her children again, and that she wanted a divorce. Derek stood guard over the door while Melissa packed her husband a suitcase, and then he left.

“He just… left?” Stiles asks, voice low, trying not to break the moment. He’s been simmering, anger right under the skin, but he won’t let it out. It would only hurt Scott further. But he’s angry. He’s angry with that shithead Rafael McCall, the drunk, selfish, petty man who always took his family for granted. Stiles stopped trusting Mr McCall when Scott and he were eight and he lost them in Disneyland because he was too busy chatting up Jasmine. What a creep.

The dislike had been very mutual though, but they’d always managed to keep Scott out of their little feud. It seemed, everyone in or around the McCall household was only too happy to keep Scott in the dark about what they really thought of his father.

Scott nods. “Y- yeah, he left. Derek told me he said something like “see you in court” and then he got into his car and left.” He clears his throat. “I think Mom spent a big part of the night crying. Derek stayed with me to make sure I was okay.”

The sheer amount of warmth and affection in his voice when he says Derek’s name kinda itches at Stiles, right between the shoulder blades. But now is not the time to bring that up. Scott just lost his dad. If he needs to make Derek the hero of this story, Stiles will let him. He’ll just have to chew on the inside of his cheek a lot. He’s not even angry at Derek, really. He would have done the exact same thing, if he had been able to. Probably would have tried to beat the fucker to death too. He’s more angry at himself, that he couldn’t be there for his best friend, his brother, in the one time he most needed him.

When Stiles needed Scott, Scott was there. He stayed with him at the hospital when his mom’s visiting hours got drastically reduced and Stiles was just a hallway ghost. He was there through it all, her death, the funeral, the weeks after when his dad was little more than a walking bottle of whiskey. Scott held Stiles’ hand while he cried and let Stiles be mean when he needed to spit acid and let him beat Scott at pretty much every video game ever.

And Stiles failed Scott.

“Are you ok?”, he asks around the mass in his throat.

Scott sniffs a little bit. “I think so. It’s, uh… unreal.” He shrugs in the dark. “I just want Mom to be okay”, he adds, strangled.

Stiles lurches forward, hugs Scott with as much strength as the weird angle they’re at permits. Scott lets himself be hugged.

::

Something’s poking Stiles foot repeatedly. He aims a sleepy kick at it, refusing to open his eyes.

“Kiddo, it’s morning. Wake up.”

His eyes snap open. He looks over at the foot of the bed, where his dad is standing in full uniform, arms crossed, looking decidedly… amused. Stiles tries to sit up, but something heavy thrown across his chest keeps him pinned to the bed. It’s an arm. Stiles looks to the left, where Scott is asleep like the dead, mouth wide open, drooling on Stiles’ pillow. Gross.

Shit.

He looks back at his dad, making wide, apologetic, “I didn’t mean to do it” eyes. The Sheriff smirks at him.

“Wake up Sleeping Beauty over there”, he says, freeing up an arm to point at Scott. “Tell him he can stay over for pancakes.”

Phew. That went over well. As the Sheriff turns around and heads for Stiles’ bedroom door, Stiles opens his mouth to ask-

“You’re still grounded!”, the Sheriff interrupts, calling over his shoulder.

Dammit.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the Sterek begin !
> 
> !! appearance of minor (mostly stupid) characters: Liam Dunbar, Mason Hewitt and the incredibly gross Theo Raeken

**Present day**

Stiles pulls up outside Liam’s house. Well. Liam’s parents’ house. Stiles wonders if his parents have any idea what kind of atrocities will happen in their house tonight. He hopes not, for their sake. Whoops and dudebro laughter reach him all the way to the street where he’s parked. Fuck.

Next to him on the passenger seat, Scott is practically vibrating with excitement. For someone who didn’t want a bachelor party, he sure is excited about it. Stiles turns to him, stern.

“Scotty”, he starts diplomatically, “we’ve talked about this, right? I’ve promised Lydia under threat to my balls”, he reminds him. “We go in, say hi to everyone, tell Liam what a great party it is, drink a beer or two, and we’re out of here before Liam has the time to pack a bowl.” 

He fixes Scott with a Martin-esque look. “Are we clear?” 

Scott nods quickly. “Do you think there’s really a bouncy castle? I can’t see it.” 

God. This is going to be even more of a challenge than what Stiles expected.

“Scott!” he calls, trying to get his friend’s undivided attention. Scott looks at him, fidgeting in his seat. Stiles fishes a small wad of cash from his flannel breast pocket, shakes it under Scott’s nose like he would a treat for a dog. “Since it is your bachelor party, I got you ten dollars in ones.” He shakes his head in disbelief at his own folly. “Not one dollar more, okay? Lydia would kill me.”

Scott takes the dollars happily, puts them in his jeans pocket. Stiles could swear Scott has not heard one word of what he said. Tonight is going to be long.

They get out of the car, through the front door, and all hell breaks loose. A vast collection of dudebros, some of them Stiles vaguely remembers from high school even though he tried really hard to forget, greet them in the entrance with hoots and many a bro hug. Stiles catches sight of a few of Scott’s colleagues from the Fire Department. Huh. Not bad, Liam.

Speaking of the devil. “Hey man, you came!”

Liam is exactly the same as he was in high school, when he was Scott’s Lacrosse co-captain as a Sophomore. He’s just as tiny, but stockier. He’s the picture of the perfect community college dropout, complete with permanently stoned look and horrible, heinous sideburns that take up a huge part of his jaw and clash violently with the rest of his short, unkempt hair. Someone put a fisherman hat on the kid and he’s ready for his life as a dumpster fire.

Stiles smiles at him with as much teeth as he can possibly show without throwing up. “Hi Liam. It’s a. Uh…” He looks around the living room to the beer pong table, the pushed back furniture to make room for where the stripper will probably perform, the couches full of bulky, heterosexual manly men, the kitchen island littered with red cups and Jameson bottles, and through the French door, the garden with the promised bouncy castle. He swallows. 

“It’s a great party, man”, he says in a strangled voice.

Liam gives him a blinding, slightly off-center smile and claps his shoulder so hard Stiles stumbles a little bit. “It’s my pleasure, man. Enjoy!” And then he disappears into the throngs of dudes jumping around belting their heart out on Blink 182 songs. Stiles’ got to hand it to Liam: this might be Stiles’ worst nightmare, but it is a perfect bachelor party for Scotty-boy.

Stiles looks around for the groom. He’s nowhere to be seen, having been dragged off by a group of bulky firemen-type the second he stepped foot inside. Well, Lydia will cut off his balls. Better resign himself now.

Stiles sighs, steeling himself. First, he needs a drink. He makes his way to the drinks table, finds a lukewarm, already half-empty keg, fills a red cup from himself and a few for half-drunk freshmen-looking dudes who gathered around him, probably because they don’t know how to work a keg on their own. Seriously? Also, not to be judgmental, but it’s like nine and these kids seem one drink away from hurling. 

Stiles extracts himself from the group of kids, goes to investigate the garden. Predictably, that’s where he finds Scott, lying on the plastic floor dressed in a tutu and a tiara, being bounced by half a dozen hulking men, howling with laughter. How can he be drunk already? This looks like some sort of perverse fantasy Jonathan Van Ness would have. Stiles looks on, a smirk on his face. Scott spots him. “Stiles”, he yells in delight. He makes big “come join” movement Stiles chooses to ignore. He nods at Scott, toasts him with his red cup. 

Sadly, he’s not left alone on the sidelines for long. Someone sidles up next to him with a beer bottle and a creepy smile. “Hi”, the guy says, looking Stiles up and down like he’s some piece of juicy meat. A chill runs up Stiles spine. The guy looks vaguely familiar. He offers his hand for Stiles to shake. He does so with reluctance, trying to place the guy. 

“Remember me? I was a year under you and Scott in high school”, the guy tells Stiles with a small smile. Stiles squints as discreetly as possible. He’s trying to match the face with the feeling of “ugh” that creeps up his spine. 

“Theo Raeken!” he exclaims. The guy smiles, nods his head in approval. Stiles wants to run away. It’s bad enough that he’s stuck at a bachelor party with dudes from high school, he’s got to be accosted by the worst of them. 

Theo had been this weird kid who tried to ingratiate himself into Scott and Stiles’ group of friends in Senior year to destroy it from the inside or some bullshit, all in the ambition take the Lacrosse captainship from Scott. When he hadn’t been able to manipulate his way through Allison or Lydia, he’d tried to turn Liam, of all people, against Scott.  _ Liam _ . Liam had worshiped the ground Scott had walked on since Coach Finstock named him Captain in Junior year. Needless to say Theo’s plan had backfired spectacularly. 

By that point Stiles had decided to take matter into his own hands to teach the kid a lesson, namely, “there is no reason to be an evil social-ladder-climbing rat in high school you stupid fucking sniveling asshole”. Every month for the rest of the year, he and Lydia filled Raeken’s locker with dirt on a random day. The supposedly cunning, sly creep never even once saw it coming, not even on his birthday, and he never found out who did it either, even though it was insanely obvious. There were  _ actual dirt tracks _ on Stiles’ Jeep once a month until graduation. It was disgraceful. 

And now they’re here, a mere foot from each other, watching Scott giggle his heart out in a child-sized bouncy castle, mere days before his wedding to Stiles’ co-conspirator. Who even invited that dude? How is he not dead in a ditch yet? Do none of Stiles’ wishes ever come true?

“How come you’re here?” Stiles asks, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice and utterly failing. Oh well. 

Theo ignores the obvious hostility. He points with his beer at a guy currently jumping on the bouncy castle, with arms the size of Stiles’ thighs. “Matt invited me. He’s my roommate”, he adds, catching Stiles’ confusion.

“Huh”, Stiles contributes. Yuck. Can’t imagine the poor dude’s suffering. Living with this? No thank you.

“Hey”, Theo says, interrupting Stiles’ inimical thoughts. He’s looking at Stiles through his lashes and bringing the bottle to his mouth and oh no. “I know I was kind of an asshole in high school”, he chuckles with calculated, absolutely fake self-awareness. “But I was hoping maybe we could get a cup of coffee some time? While you’re in town I mean.” He caps it off with a self-conscious shrug and a long, pervy look at Stiles mouth. Ew ew ew, gross, ew. Lydia would piss herself laughing if she knew this was happening.

This is the moment for Stiles to say “oh hell no” and maybe spill the remnants of his warm beer on Theo’s white t-shirt before walking away, but for some reason he’s stuck to the spot, his face steadily drained of color, mind blank. He’s not very good with the aggressive flirtation thing. 

His salvation comes in an unexpected form. One second he’s standing here asking Zeus to send him a lightning bolt, the next Liam stumbles into him, dragging a tall guy by the neck, who looks entirely thrashed. Seriously, what’s up with these kids? It can’t be over 10pm. As the guy straightens up with difficulty, his eyes focus on Stiles. At the same second the kid recognizes him, Stiles makes out the delicate features of Liam’s best friend, Mason. Stiles always liked the kid, in an “I don’t know you but you seem endearingly dorky” way.

“Hey dude! Man!” Mason literally shouts at Stiles, no concept of volume or inhibition left in his body. Stiles grins at him, more out of gratitude for dislodging the creep from Stiles’ side than out of affection.

Theo, now separated from Stiles by the bulk of two heavily intoxicated people, looks like he’s chewing on a bunch of lemons. Stiles approves.

“Dude!” Mason shrieks, eyes wide. “You’re a big-”, he hiccups, “big time music man now, aren’t you?” 

A few people turn to look at them with mild interest. A vicious glint appears in Theo’s eyes as Liam gapes. Liam turns to his friend with some difficulty, given the fact that he’s still holding on to him by the neck. 

“He is?” he asks, as if Mason had said he was Michael Jackson or something. Stiles tries to think of a safe exit strategy as fast as possible. He’d walk out right now, but he’s gotta keep an eye on Scott. And he wants to make sure the creep doesn’t follow him.

Mason is nodding so hard it’s a miracle his head doesn’t fall off. “Yeah!” he exclaims, “I’m fo- following his Youtj- Youtube, uuuh thing. Youtube channel!”

Anytime now with that lightning bolt, Zeus. 

He’s seriously considering just making a run for it when Liam turns to him, excited in the same puppy way Scott is. “Duuuuuude!’, he says, impressed. “You could, like, perform for us!” He opens his arms wide to encompass the whole group of guys looking around at them, face alight with glee, like he’s just got the best idea ever. “D’you know how to beatbox? D’you know some Skrillex?” 

Okay, Stiles is out of here. He mumbles some vague excuse and walks as fast as his legs will carry him toward the house, peeking briefly over his shoulder to make sure Theo can’t follow, trapped in the circle forming around Liam making truly nasty sounds with his mouth. 

The inside of the house is much quieter. Most bottles on the drinks table are half empty already. Guys are sprawled all over couches, half asleep or high out of their minds. They look at Stiles wordlessly as he passes them by. 

He stops at the foot of the stairs. He knows it’s bad party etiquette to go upstairs, but 1) he could hide out in a room overlooking the garden so he could still keep his promise to keep an eye on Scott, 2) it’s not like he’s bringing someone up there to hook up, 3) if that creep Raeken comes looking for him, it will be harder for him to find Stiles. He makes his way upstairs quietly.

Finally, a blessing in this horrible night. At the end of the hallway, there’s a window seat shrouded in darkness, just overlooking the garden. Stiles steps toward it, careful not to make the floorboards creak. He catches movement from the corner of his eye. There’s someone sitting there already. Please God let it not be people hooking up.

“Heyyyy”, he calls in a low, awkward voice. He’s really hoping the garden shadows are just playing a trick on his mind and nobody will answer him. He takes another step forward, tempting destiny.

“Hi.” A strangely familiar voice. Shadows move. Light from the garden filters through, briefly illuminating a face. Derek Hale. Stiles’ body and mind still. 

Derek makes a complicated grimace that seems to indicate discomfort and a plea for Stiles not to reveal his secret hiding spot.

Stiles breathes, brain and joints unlocking. Derek Hale. He hasn’t seen the guy in over three years. 

Well, no. He’s seen him around, sporadically. They’ve been in the same room a handful of times since Stiles left for college, namely at every goddamn Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the McCalls and the two Christmases Stiles made it home for. But other people were around then. They didn’t have to talk or look at each other, or even be aware of the other’s presence. They haven’t been alone together since- well, since-

“Sorry”, Derek interrupts Stiles’ slippery train of thoughts in a low, deep voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Stiles, for want of a better thing to do, shrugs. Derek seems to be going the polite conversation route, which is a route they’ve hardly ever taken. Stiles can count on one hand the number of times he willingly talked to Derek Hale, and he doesn’t remember it being civil or pleasant or polite. But he’s not very good at stewing in silence either. 

“You’ve been hiding here for long?” he asks a bit too loud. 

Derek makes a pleading shushing gesture at him. “Voices carry all the way to the stairs”, he whispers as an explanation as Stiles slaps a hand to his mouth.

They listen for any kind of sounds from downstairs, but except from the feeble drone of Motion City Soundtrack from the living room, nothing reaches them. Stiles relaxes a little bit. Then he remembers who he’s with and his shoulders go back up to his chin. Worst night ever.

Derek points his chin to the window. “I can see Scott from here”, he explains. He scooches closer to the wall at his back to leave some room for Stiles to sit. 

Listen, Stiles wouldn’t sit next to Derek Hale in a million years. But he’s very tired, so many horrible things have already happened tonight. Warm beer swishes unpleasantly in his stomach and there’s nobody around. And he really, really wants to make sure Scott isn’t doing a keg stand and breaking his nose on the terrace pavement. 

So he sits down, next to Derek Hale. He lets the wave of shame and dislike wash over him for a second. He breathes it out. He’s not a kid anymore, he can do the grown-up thing and consider a wedding truce. That’s what Jesus would do.

Derek points at the place Scott is standing, surrounded by his friends, all of them in a loose circle around Liam and a couple of other guys poorly attempting to breakdance. Stiles can’t help a smile to curling up his lips. He steals a glance at Derek in the feeble light. He’s as impassive as he always is. But he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of amusement in his eye. Must be a trick of the beer.

“I got here maybe half an hour before you and Scott did”, Derek breaks the silence carefully, answering Stiles’ earlier question.

“Huh”, Stiles answers eloquently. He wishes he had a beer in hand, or a baseball bat, or a guitar. Something to distract him.

“Liam is very… enthusiastic”, Derek observes. 

Stiles can’t help the chuckle that escapes him. It is beautifully put. 

“Yeah”, he says. They watch as the man himself tries and fails spectacularly at standing on his head. “But he’s a terrible breakdancer.”

Derek shrugs minutely. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Silence falls over them as whoops from the garden waft through the window.

From all the crazy disastrous things to happen tonight, sitting in the dark having a quiet, borderline amiable conversation with Derek Hale was not one Stiles had expected. 

Don’t get him wrong, he did expect that, being both groomsmen, they would have to interact in some way. But in the interest of keeping the experience pleasant for everyone, he’d expected these interactions to be minimal. He had dreaded them, too, given what they’d said to each other last time they had “talked”. But this right here. It’s like Derek is trying to bury the hatchet or something. If Stiles didn’t know him, he’d think Derek was this nicely adjusted, perfectly sympathetic guy.

Stiles picks at his fingers. He figures, if this is the Twilight Zone, better make the most of it.

“Did you have anything to do with this?” Stiles asks, waving a hand toward the happenings outside, trying to keep the accusation in tone his to a minimum.

“Was the bouncy castle my idea, you mean?” Derek answers derisively.

Stiles snorts, looks away at the tall trees framing the Dunbar house, the ones keeping him and Derek in the shadows. He thinks about the one thing Derek and he have in common. 

“Our boy did good, uh?” He points at where Scott is standing, hugging the sides of the bouncy castle, drunken happiness etched on his face, visible from where they sit. “Marrying up.”

Derek nods, eyes focused on the swaying castle. “Yes, he did. Lydia is a lucky girl.”

For the second time in his life, Stiles willingly searches for Derek’s eyes, pierces him with an intense stare. “They’re good for each other, right?” he asks in a voice he wishes was steady. “They’re a sure thing.”

Derek looks back at him, eyebrows pinched. But it’s not their usual “Stiles is a nuisance” pinch, it’s different. “They are good. For each other.” He shrugs. “But nothing is a sure thing.”

Stiles swallows. Yeah, he guesses Derek Hale of all people would know that.

“So, you’re gonna sing?” Derek asks offhandedly.

Stiles stiffens a little. “How do you know that?”

Derek rolls his eyes, sending Stiles into familiar territory. “I am a groomsman. I am kept informed of what’s happening during the ceremony”, he says with some impatience. Stiles feels like he’s finally in the presence of the real Derek. “Besides, everyone knows. You’re kind of a local celebrity here, after your little graduation stunt.”

The derisiveness in Derek’s voice makes him smile. Whatever people say, he will never regret pulling that stuff at graduation. It was the best.

“And”, Derek keeps going, suddenly awkward, “I saw you the other day, at Bernie’s.” He looks down at his hands.

“Oh.” Stiles honestly thought he hallucinated him there. He clears his throat. “That was- that was nothing. Just a- an improv, or something.” He looks back at Scott, trying to keep his mind off the moment. It’s still very unfamiliar to him, performing outside of the educated confines of Berkeley. He’s used to people watching him and analyzing him and having some sort of opinion about him. But it’s always a specific kind of audience. 

Not random people off the street, who don’t necessarily know who Schubert or Lenny Kaye are. It’s so scary, to perform for people who don’t know why he would make a melody progress in a certain way. People are just… unpredictable. And what Stiles has always liked in music, was the way he could control his own volatility, modulate it to make something beautiful.

“It was beautiful”, Derek mutters, mirroring Stiles’ thoughts. 

Stiles thanks all the Gods for the darkness as he feels red splotches bloom on his cheeks. He opens his mouth to utter some sort of disparaging comment to diffuse the tension, but a roar of drunken happiness cuts him off. Cries of “Stripper’s here! Guys!  _ Stripper _ !” alert them to its nature. 

They exchange “you wanna? No thank you” looks and settle on the window seat for a little longer, as the garden is quickly emptied of its previous occupants. Stiles hopes Scott will make good choices in the spending of his ten one dollar bills. 

Scared they might be heard now that the house is full, or simply maybe all talked out, Derek and Stiles keep quiet while whoops and yells and Britney’s Slave for u drift over to them. Stiles really wishes he had a guitar between his fingers. It’s not uncomfortable per se, sitting there next to the guy responsible for a lot of his worst teenage moments, it’s just. Distracting.

Minutes or centuries later, a pitiful cry of “Stiiiiiiiles” shreds their eardrums. Stiles jumps to his feet, Derek on his heels. A close-knit group of guys circle the stripper, chanting for an encore, but Scott is flopped down on a couch nearby, looking up at the ceiling, the biggest smile on his face. Stiles hunches over him, elbows on the back of the couch, trying to catch his eyes. 

“Hey buddy. You okay?”

Scott’s eyes focus on Stiles with some difficulty. He reaches his hand out toward his face. “Stiiiiiiles”, he yells, delighted. Stiles slaps the probing hand gently away.

“Yeah man, it’s me.” Stiles looks around for a second, assessing the situation. Almost everyone in the room is either passed out on some sort of surface or scrambling frantically to find more cash in their pockets. Except for Derek, who’s hovering awkwardly close, looking concerned. Stiles makes a split decision. He beckons Derek closer so he can hear their conversation, turns back to Scott. Who’s falling asleep.

“Hey, Scott, hey buddy”, Stiles calls, slapping Scott gently on the cheek to get him to open his eyes. “I can’t let you sleep here buddy. Your wife-to-be would feed me to her pooch.” 

Scott opens his eyes sliver by sliver. He’s still smiling. What a doofus.

“Scott, hey”, Derek intervenes. Scott’s eyes snap open. He finds Derek almost instantly. 

“D’rek, hey! You’re here!” Scott turns urgently toward Stiles. “Stiles!” he stage-whispers. “Derek’s here! Hide!”

Oh my god. Stiles hangs his head for a second, sighs. He’s going to have to do this either way. “Scott”, he calls again, “what did you have to drink, buddy?”

Scott opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He frowns in thought. “Dunno. It was kindaaaaaaa”, he drones on, “pink. Peachy”. Satisfied with his answers, he turns to his side, closes his eyes, and promptly falls asleep.

If he didn’t live the threat of Lydia Martin unleashed on his balls, Stiles would so be filming Scott right now. For posterity. He’s so funny and cute, it’s almost unbearable. But for the time being, he’s mostly very fucking tired, at the end of his rope. He raises pleading eyes to Derek, who, thankfully, graciously, takes the cue.

He grabs Scott by the hands, heaves him upright like he weighs no more than a sack of potatoes, and each of them with a shoulder under Scott, they crab march him to Stiles’ car. Scott wakes up a couple of times in the process, every time equally astonished and delighted by what’s happening to him. “Stiles! Be careful! Derek’s here!” he shouts, giggling in Stiles’ neck. Stiles avoids looking in Derek’s direction, rolls his eyes, and resolves to make Scott pay for this, someway, somehow.

Once they’ve got him buckled up into the car and Scott is for some reason sobbing on Derek’s shoulder, blubbering away about “you’re my brother man. My  _ brother _ . Oh my god I love you so much”, Stiles slides the keys into the ignition and he’s finally breathing oxygen again. Derek manages to extricate himself from a newly snoring Scott. 

“Well”, he says awkwardly, as he and Stiles make eye contact over Scott’s sleeping form.

“Thank you”, Stiles breathes. And he really means it. Derek seems to know it, because he curls up a little smile at him. Stiles’ stomach swoops. Ugh, crappy beer.

Derek steps back, slams the car door closed. He stays on the sidewalk, raising an arm in goodbye, as Stiles drives away. Stiles checks his rear-view mirror as he turns the corner. Derek’s still there.

::

**Six years ago**

“Stilinski”, a decidedly unwelcome voice comes from his right. He straightens up from where he was digging around his locker for his French book. Dammit, he probably left it at home. He’ll have to share with Scott. He smacks his locker closed as hard as he dares, hoping to dislodge the person lurking on the other side of it. No such luck.

Derek Hale is leaning a shoulder on the row of lockers, glaring at Stiles. He’s wearing his signature leather jacket, sunglasses folded into the neck of his t-shirt like he’s Danny fucking Zuko. What a total douche.

To make matters worse, Stiles has to look up to stare at him disdainfully, which kind of ruins the effect. He crosses his arms to try and look more imposing than he really is.

“What do you want Hale? Here to steal my lunch money?” Stiles asks, all bravado and carefully cultivated hatred. 

Derek swats a hand at his remark, looking even more murderous.

Stiles wouldn’t know what someone wanting to steal his lunch money would look like. Even when though he’s just a scrawny sophomore, is in band  _ and _ isn’t part of any sports team, he hasn’t been bullied once since he started high school. He and Scott have been lucky enough to slip through the claws of the merry band of brutish, dweeby Seniors terrorizing the younger kids. Speaking of Seniors.

“Can you come with me”, Derek asks in a monotone, with no inflection whatsoever, “outside.”

Stiles considers him, wide-eyed. Derek and Stiles never interact, unless they have to at awkward family functions, like passing the yams at Thanksgiving or flanking either side of Scott at the divorce hearing. It’s public knowledge that they hate each other. Since Scott and Stiles started high school, Derek has never even looked in Stiles’ direction. Why is he speaking to him now?

Stiles looks him up and down, scanning for threats. He could be hiding a shiv in his leather jacket.

“With no witnesses around?” Stiles feels compelled to ask.

Derek scowls at him. “Please.”

Stiles frowns. He clearly didn’t mean that. Derek keeps scowling at him.

Stiles shrugs at him exaggeratedly. He makes an “I guess” gesture with his hand. 

Derek detaches himself from the row of lockers, leads the way down the hallway, through the double doors, down the steps and outside to the parking lot. He makes a beeline for his beloved Camaro, or, as Stiles and Scott call it in the privacy of Scott’s bedroom, the babe magnet.

Stiles follows apprehensively. Maybe Derek will get a jack out of the trunk of his car and use it to beat Stiles up. Stiles racks his brain for a reason Derek would want to inflict pain on him, but he hasn’t insulted him (to his face) or hid fish under his bed or ran a slander campaign against him at school for months. 

His best bet is that he might have taken advantage of band practice to tell that pretty girl Paige, the one Derek has been hanging around, that Derek was in fact part wolf and howled at the full moon every month. Which is, as far as Stiles is concerned, true until proven to the contrary. So there. Stiles did nothing wrong. Derek cannot beat him up. 

Derek doesn’t extract a weapon from his car. He just leans against the side of it, crosses his arms and considers Stiles calmly. Stiles stops a few feet away from him, balances his weight from foot to foot. This is infuriating. They’re just standing there, looking at each other like two morons. What if someone saw them? It would ruin both their reputations.

Stiles clears his throat, decided on not being the first one to speak, but also very, deeply uncomfortable. Without a word, Derek opens his leather jacket, plunges a hand inside it. Stiles winces, pretty sure Derek’s about to pull out a knife, but instead he reveals a crumpled white rose. He brandishes it at Stiles, whose brain is doing the Windows crash sound repeatedly. Frowning, Derek shakes the rose a little bit under Stiles nose. 

Stiles wants to slap it away from his hand. It’s probably cursed. Maybe its thorns are covered in deadly poison. But to his extreme astonishment, he just. Takes it from Derek. Just like that. Their fingers brush as the rose is passed between them. Stiles’ insides squirm.

Stiles considers the rose in his hand.

“What is this?” he asks. Which is a fair question, he thinks.

“A rose”, Derek answers stoically. Stiles wills his brain to explode. 

“Your mom’s favorite? I asked Scott”, Derek tacks on, and just like that the hole in Stiles’ heart engulfs him whole. He remembers going to the cemetery every year with his dad in the spring, depositing a bouquet of barely bloomed white roses on his mother’s tomb. They forgot to go this year.

Stiles swallows with difficulty. “What is this?” he repeats.

“Come to Prom with me”, Derek answers, which neither here nor there.

“What!” Stiles yells, because, really?

Derek sighs through his nostrils, and for a fleeting second he looks like an annoyed teenager, not  a Murder God. “I’m asking you to my Senior prom.”

Stiles pinches his cheek. Ow. Not a dream. Derek looks at him like he’s lost it, which, he probably has since he just hallucinated Derek Hale asking him to Prom. With seniors. 

“Y-you”, Stiles points at Derek with the hand holding the rose, “are asking me”, he points at himself, “to a dance?” 

Derek nods slowly, like Stiles is a moron who needs time to catch up with other people’s understanding of things.

There’s a pause where they just look at each other, bewildered by the other’s reaction. Then Stiles explodes with laughter. Derek just looks at him, arms crossed, emotionless. It’s like being stared at by a robot. Or an angry cow.

Stiles gets his breathing under control with difficulty, placing a hand on the stitch in his ribs. He glares at Derek. “This is a prank, right?” 

Derek rolls his eyes with his whole head, mimicking a habit of Scott’s. It reminds Stiles that this guy and his best friend are in fact family. He hates that. Derek looks at Stiles with a weird kind of disapprobation. Silence weighs down on their shoulders. Stiles shifts from foot to foot again, looking around the parking lot. No witnesses. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? If Derek ends up murdering him and stuffing his corpse in the trunk of his sexy car, that’s definitely a bad thing.

Derek sighs, long and kind of- resigned, maybe? “It’s not a prank. I’m asking you to prom. If you don’t want to go with me, just say so.” He looks at the ground, shoulders tense.

Stiles kind of wants to turn around and run away from this whole situation. He wants to close his eyes and be transported to another reality, one with no Derek Hale, one where his mom is still alive. He’s had this dream so often, it feels like a second home, a familiar, warm place inside his chest he can escape to when needed. Like, for example, right now.

But Derek’s still here, leaning on his car, looking at him through his unusually long lashes, all bulk and sexy dark demeanor. And Stiles doesn’t know what to do.

What do you do, as an acne-riddled, desperately smooth-chinned sophomore, when the hottest, most dangerous, most asshole-ish senior asks you to prom all the while looking like he’d have more fun disemboweling a cat, and you’re pretty sure it is just a weird ploy to end your barely blooming young life?

You say no. Emphatically. And then you run for your life.

So that’s what Stiles does. He steels himself, settles his shoulders, and looks directly into Derek’s eyes.

“I would rather die than go to prom with you”, he says in the least shaky voice possible. And then he runs away, because he’s classy like that.

A while later, as the bell signals the end of last period, Scott finds him curled up in a ball, wedged between Scott’s dirt bike and his own, looking at the ground.

“Where have you been?” Scott asks in his panicky voice. “Harris definitely noticed you weren’t in class! I didn’t know what to tell him!”

Stiles grunts. The world kinda feels like it’s a big joke right now. He doesn’t care about Harris. So he’ll get yet another detention, whatever. 

Scott crouches down in front of him. “What happened?” 

“Nothing”, Stiles answers, not detaching his eyes from the asphalt he can see through the gap between his knees. “Just felt like ditching for a bit.”

He looks up at Scott. “Do you have food?”

Scott looks puzzled, but he dutifully opens his book bag and pulls out a small bag of chips. Stiles takes it from him, rips it open. He plunges a hand into it and feels marginally like himself again. By the time he’s eaten every single chip and all that’s left behind is sticky orange dust on his fingers, he’s back to fully human. 

Scott is still looking at him with a mixture of concern and disgust, which is pretty par for the course. “What happened”, he repeats.

Stiles shakes his head in dismissal. “Nothing bro. Don’t worry.” He gets up, feeling the joints in his knees pop as he does so. “I’m going to go home. I’m wiped.”

“What? But we were gonna try that new game-” Scott protests feebly.

“Yeah bud”, Stiles says, stretching out his arms. He kinda feels like he’s been asleep for a while and he’s only just woken up. “I’m sorry. Raincheck?” 

He unlocks his bike, grabs it and flees the scene before Scott is totally over his bout of pouting. Whatever. If he knew, he’d understand.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's Camp Nano time! hoping to finish this fic before the month is over, but of course, I cannot promise anything.  
> thank you so much for reading, kudosing and commenting!

**Present day**

Stiles lets himself in, loaded with his guitar case and amp, suit bag draped over his shoulder. He looks around the small room, scanning for signs of life. Lydia requisitioned the small coffee shop at the corner of the town square as the base of operations. Stiles’ pretty sure she blackmailed the owners so they would close the shop and lend her the space on a Saturday, but the less he knows about the inner workings of Lydia’s mind, the safer he is.

Chairs and tables have been pushed back to accommodate the arrival of the wedding party, but thankfully, a fresh pot of coffee has been brewed and is sitting on the counter. Thank all the Gods. Stiles dumps his stuff against a wall, gets himself a mug. He’d been up a good part of the night before rehearsing. He already came down yesterday afternoon to do a quick sound check. With the sound team. Because there’s a sound team. Stiles doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want to know.

His fingers are jittery. He keeps changing his mind, too. He went and did a stupid thing, ok, he wrote a special song for Scott and Lydia as a wedding present. He intends to sing that one later, as Lydia walks down the aisle, but. What if they hate it? Maybe he should stick to the one they said they liked. He’s already performed that one a handful of times around school, he knows it’s good. Ish. He shouldn’t take any risks, he could ruin the wedding, and he can’t even imagine what Lydia would do to him if that happened. God, he’s stupid.

He needs more coffee. He guzzles down the remainder of his mug, grabs his suit and goes on the hunt for the groom. It’s a pretty easy trail: just follow the squeals of joy. Scott is talking loudly on the phone, pacing the length of the small office he’s set up in, suit hung on the door, tiny red velvet box sitting primly on the desk. Stiles eyes it, swallows. Weddings are so stressful. Why do people do it? Scott catches sight of Stiles, waves frantically as he keeps going with his biathlon of phone talking and carpet hole-wearing.

Stiles walks in silently, hangs his suit with Scott’s. He surveys the square through the overlooking window. A makeshift stage has been put up, supporting an arch woven with white and pale yellow flowers. White chairs form an aisle lined with rose petals. Further away, next to the fountain, a bar and dancefloor take up most of the open space, framed by a smattering of round tables laden with golden plates and cutlery. It’s… exactly what Stiles expected Lydia’s wedding would look like. He crosses his fingers behind his back, hoping he won’t clash with the whole perfection of the thing.

“Yes, Tio Tony, yes”, Scott keeps yelling into the phone. “No, Tio, it’s fine, I totally understand, you live so far away”, he bellows, nodding at nothing like one of those puppy dolls at the back of cars. “No, I dont- it’s fine really, I-”, he slumps his shoulder, “sure Tio, I’ll talk to Cousin Miguel.” He rolls his eyes at Stiles, keeps pacing as Cousin Miguel passes along his congratulations and regrets for not coming or whatever. Stiles smirks.

A second later, Scott hangs up on his prattling cousin. He turns to Stiles and his face breaks in two, he’s smiling so hard. Stiles smiles in answer. What else can you do, faced with so much happiness? They hug, a big, intense, claps-on-the-back hug. Today is Scott’s wedding day. Fuck. Stiles knew this kid when his favorite activity was eating sand. Granted, Stiles was the one telling him eating sand would give him superpowers. But still.

“How you holding up?” Stiles asks, clapping Scott on the shoulder.

Scott cocks his head to the side, really thinking about it. He smiles again. It’s like he can’t stop. “Pretty good.”

Stiles nods. “The bride-to-be?”

“At my mom’s house, getting ready. Allison is supposed to come by here any second to pick up the veil-

“-and spy on us”, Stiles finishes for Scott. Lydia wouldn’t leave them without supervision. “Better put on our suits, then.”

Scott literally bounds to where they hung their clothes. He’s like a little woodland creature.

Stiles hurries up putting on his suit, kinda regrets letting Lydia alter it. It’s a bit tighter than what he’s used to, in the ass area. Eh, he’ll live. He steps to Scott and gives himself the luxury of puttering around his best friend, fixing his collar and checking he put his belt on correctly. Melissa isn’t here, so someone should be doing it. And that someone should be him.

After a good three minutes of this, Scott slaps his hands away, ties his own tie by himself. “I’m pretty used to wearing a uniform, you know”, he tells Stiles with a mock frown.

“Speaking of? Shouldn’t you get married in it?” He looks Scott up and down. “Not that you don’t look super fine in this little pale blue-grey number your fiancée picked out for you.”

Scott takes a hand off his tie to shove at Stiles’ shoulder. “Stop it, man, I’m blushing. Uniforms are not mandatory. I didn’t care. The guys at the department didn’t care. Lydia did care very much and wanted a classic, fitted suit. So here it is.”

Stiles nods. “It’s cool.” He looks off to the side, reminded of the faded picture on his dad’s nightstand. “My dad got married in uniform.”

Scott adjust his tie one final time. “Mine too.”

It’s like a spell has been cast. Scott’s face goes blank, then sad. His shoulders slump. He sits down in the office chair, puts his hands in his carefully coiffed hair. Uh oh.

“What is it, buddy?” Stiles asks tentatively, where he stands frozen close to the window, scared to make it worse or unleash some sort of crisis. To be fair, he’s been expecting a drop in enthusiasm at some point. But when it didn’t happen at the bachelor party, when Scott had so much alcohol in his system, he’d figured he just didn’t have enough faith in his best friend. Now, though. Now is way too late.

“I don’t know man”, Scott says, choked up. “I feel like-” He lifts his head toward Stiles, eyes wide. “It all feels so- perfect. With Lydia.”

Uh. Not where Stiles expected it to go.

“Since we got together, everything has been going so great. There was never a bump in the road. We’re on the same page, and even when we argue, it’s- I don’t know, on track.” He swallows, looking off into the distance. “It’s been so obvious since day one, that she was the one. When I proposed it was- a foregone conclusion. She’s it.”

Stiles takes a step toward him, dreading the direction this is taking. “So, what’s the issue?”

Scott’s hands spam where they are lodged in his hair. If he messes it up, Lydia will blame Stiles. If her future husband has a nervous breakdown, she’ll blame him too. Oh, the iniquity.

Scott swallows, avoids Stiles’ eyes. “What if- what if my dad felt like this too when he married my mom?”

Oh no.

“What if the beginning was just as perfect, and then it went wrong? What if we really are our parents, Stiles?” Scott asks, picking up volume and speed.

He gets up in a chorus of chair squeaks, starts pacing the length of the small office yet again, wearing ugly creases in his perfectly pressed pants.

“What if I’m just like my dad and I ruin her life? She could be- she could be anything she wants, Stiles, she’s a fucking genius! What if hold her back? The other night, I got so drunk on the peach stuff, maybe I do have a problem and we’ll just-”

The office door opens. Scott stops in his tracks. Stiles whips his head around. Derek is standing in the doorframe, looking murderous in a dark grey suit. A pale yellow flower is pinned to his lapel, the same one Stiles and Scott have. It’s trembling over his heaving chest. God, he’s, uhm. A sight to behold. Stiles looks at his feet for a second or two.

“I could hear you yell from the street”, Derek says in a deep, angry voice. Stiles hunches his shoulder closer to his ears. He’s so used to Derek’s anger being directed at him, he can’t help his defense mechanisms.

“What is going on.” No question mark implied. A true Derek Hale question.

“I’m-.” Scott’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m- what if I’m him?” he asks them, anguish all over his face.

Derek looks at him, scowling so hard the space between his eyebrows has totally disappeared. He steps in front of Scott, claps both hands on his shoulders so hard Stiles is surprised Scott doesn’t buckle under the shock. He keeps forgetting Scott is a beefcake now.

Derek shakes Scott a little bit, rattling the bad thoughts off his mind. “Scott”, he growls, “look at me.”

Scott does. He’s crying for real this time.

“You are not your dad”, Derek asserts in his deep, no-argument-brooked voice. “I’ve known you all your stupid teenage years and all your young adult life. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to marry the love of their life at twenty, and for everyone around them to know it is absolutely, profoundly right.” 

He swallows.

“You’re not Rafael. You are Melissa’s”, he adds with so much feeling Stiles gets the urge to look away from them.

Scott lets out a choked out sob and falls into his brother’s arms. 

Is it getting hard to breathe in here? 

Stiles walks to the door as discreetly as he can and sneaks out. In the hallway, with his back to the door, he looks up, blinking back tears. They haven’t gotten to the wedding part and Stiles has already felt way too many emotions for one day.

He walks down the stairs, gunning for a refill of coffee, when a blur of white and yellow runs through the front door.

“What”, Stiles has barely any time to say before he’s slammed against the counter by a fiery, gorgeous, adult version of Allison Argent.

“Stiles!” she yells right at his face, a hand pushing at his chest, eyes firing lightning bolts. She’s wearing an off-white dress covered in watercolor-style yellow flowers, the same flowers adorning her artfully unkempt bun. She looks lovely. And like she’s going to murder him.

“Ouch”, Stiles says, because seriously, the counter’s edge is digging into his back and he knows for a fact his chest is gonna bruise right where Allison has her hand pressed.

“I need you”, Allison whispers urgently. No “hey Stiles long time no see, how did you manage to become so handsome?” His friends are rude.

“Where’s the body?” he asks. “We can bury it in my dad’s garden, that’s the last place they’ll think to look. But we’re going to be short in time, Scott and Lydia are supposed to get hitched in about an hour.”

Like a horror movie in slow motion, Stiles watches Allison’s eyes fill with tears. Oh no. No no no. Not again. He’s not ready.

“Please don’t-”

Aaaand she’s sobbing on his shoulder, whole body shaking. Stiles puts his arms around her awkwardly, patting her on the back. What fabric is his suit again? Is it going to stain? What about her makeup?

“There there”, he says. What? He’s all emoted out. He’s basically an empty shell.

“I’m-”, she sobs. “I’m-”, she sobs harder, gripping Stiles by the lapels of his suit.

“You’re not still in love with Sco-” Stiles starts asking, but she interrupts.

“I’m pregnant.”

Wow. Okay, that’s new.

“With Scott’s baby?” What?? Stiles needs to check. He’s the best man, that’s his duty.

Allison stops crying long enough to smack him over the head. Fucking  _ ouch _ .

“No, you moron”, she answers. “I’ve been in France for three years.”

Stiles does the math quickly in his head, and yeah, sure, that checks out. “Then why are you-”, Stiles asks and gets interrupted again.

“I just found out, and I’m so hormonal and sleep-deprived and listen, Stiles”, she says, poking him hard in the chest. Again, with the pain-inflicting. Can it stop, maybe? “You have to help me”.

“I’m not raising a kid with you”, he gets out before she hits him again. Better get all the bases covered.

She rolls her eyes, all leaking makeup and tear tracks on her cheeks. “I’m not raising my child with you. You  _ are _ a child.”

Okay, this thing with the name calling and the hitting? It’s got to stop. They haven’t seen each other since that party at Whittemore’s a week after graduation, she doesn’t get to waltz in here and start slapping him around. 

Except that she does get to because she’s Allison and also she’s pregnant, apparently. If she asked him to lay down so she could walk all over him, he would do it. She can just never find out about it.

“Fine, fine!” he says, wiggling around until she takes a step back and he can de-wedge himself from the counter. “I’ll help you. What can I do?”

She wrings her hands, looking around. Stiles side-steps the counter to find some paper napkins, hands them to her. She dabs at her eyes with a nod of thanks.

“Nobody can find out”, she explains when she’s calmed down some. “Today is Lydia’s day”, she adds, waving Stiles off when he points out “and Scott’s”, “the focus has to be on her. And you know how this town gets, if somebody learns that the maid-of-honor slash ex-girlfriend of the groom is pregnant, all hell will break loose.”

Stiles nods commiseratingly. Yes. Beacon Hills, as a community, is pretty bored, so anything that happens, be it interesting or not, is frontpage news. There’s just not a lot to do around here. “How do I help?”

Allison fixes him with a look that would make better men cower in fear. Stiles stands his ground.

“You will have to drink my booze.”

Uhm. Okay. “Uhm, okay?”

She shakes her head. “I’m serious, Stilinski, you’ll have to cover for me, pretend everything is normal.” She gestures at the whole setup outside with its giant bar. “Who doesn’t drink at a wedding? Only AA people and pregnant ones. Both rumors would be bad.”

Stiles looks at the bar through the window, considers her demand. He looks back at her, steps toward her until he can take hold of both her hands. “I promise, Allison Argent. I’ll drink your booze.”

She dimples at him, a perfect Allison smile. “My hero.”

::

**Six years ago**

“That was good”, Ms Russo says with a smile. She’s always smiling. Stiles used to think it was weird at the beginning. Now he’s used to it. He guesses some people are just always happy, like her and Scott and Danny from school.

He’s just finished a few rounds of A minor melodic and harmonic scales. He’s got a few minutes until the lesson is over and he’d like to show her a song he’s taught himself over the week, but before he can start plunking the first notes of Implicit Demand for Proof, Gloria turns toward him fully, fixes him with a serious look.

“Do you know what you’d like to do later on? As an adult, I mean”, she adds, seeing his frown.

An adult? Him? That’s like a million years ago. Does he need to, like, think about this now? 

Since he started piano lessons eight months ago, all he’s ever talked with Gloria was how she preferred to be called by her first name rather than “Ms Russo” and about music. There’s never been a lecture about not swearing or finger smudges on the keys or focusing on what he’s doing. It’s all scales and hand placement and technique and pedals and “don’t look at your fingers while you’re playing”.

She never asks questions about how he got here, every Wednesday evening in her living room, and what draws him to spend hours at home bent over his keyboard, trying to reproduce his favorite tunes with a lot of help from Youtube tutorials. Stiles gets the feeling she likes him, as a student, but since they never talk about anything else than what they’re both here for, he can’t know for sure.

So yeah, this question is coming a bit out of left field. He shrugs, defensive. “I don’t know.” He looks down at his fingers hovering over the keys. He feels like pointing out the obvious. “I’m only fifteen.”

She cocks her head, smiles again. She caught his deflection. “Well, I’m just saying”, she starts with aplomb, “if you wanted to pursue music… I think it could be in the cards for you.”

Stiles turns his head, looks up into her clear eyes. There’s nothing there except warm sincerity. Despite himself, his heart soars in his chest. He stomps the feeling down. “Really?” he asks, voice a bit too high for his liking.

She nods readily. “Yes. You’re an applied student, and you’re talented.” 

Stiles tries really hard not to blush. Uncool. 

“There are a lot of very good college music departments in California”, she continues. “My alma mater, for example, UC Berkeley. It might be a good fit for you, although it is a little bit too soon to tell yet.” She chuckles. “But don’t worry about that now. You have some time to think about it.” She looks away. “At least until September.”

“ _ September _ ?” Stiles’ voice hits a new high. “I’m a sophomore”, he points out, distressed. The year isn’t even completely over yet, he has two full years of high school left, which leaves him… uh, he’s never done this particular math before… at  _ least _ a year before he needs to worry about applying to colleges. If he’s even  _ going _ to college.

Stiles is pretty aware of his academic potential okay. High school’s been on the whole less challenging than middle school, but still. He’s no Lydia Martin, GPA-wise. He’s not going to make it into  _ UC Berkeley _ .

Anyway, why is he even thinking about this? He’s a kid. He’s still riding a bike to and from school every day. He still sleeps in Batman sheets. He’s never kissed anyone. He’s a  _ virgin _ .

“If you decide you really want to pursue music in college”, Gloria explains, “there’s a special application process for most school. Auditions of sorts. It is a lot of work and even more practice beforehand, so you’ve got to be serious and secure in your ambitions. We’d need to discuss the whole process with your dad, of course.”

Stiles must have gone slightly white in the face because she smiles at him reassuringly, pats his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it for now. Just… think it over. If this is something you want, I’ll help you out. I really think you have what it takes, Stiles.”

A few seconds later, she sees him off with a cheery “See you next Wednesday!” and Stiles is on his bike, pedaling toward home.

He rides on autopilot, letting Jesus take the wheel for this one. His head is buzzing, full of their conversation. His fingers are tingling like he’s experiencing vertigo, though that might be the unseasonably cold wind on his hands. His lungs expand strangely in his chest. Such a weird feeling. 

He has this thought that doesn’t want to dislodge from his head no matter how hard he tries not to form it into words. He can’t help thinking it. It is the first time an adult, someone who hasn’t seen him grow up around his dad and Scott and their life like a weed, sees something in him that he doesn’t see himself. Something like... worth. It’s the first time a person singles him out and says “you could be somebody.” 

He’s used to the pitiful stares. From the neighbours at the grocery store, from the officers who have driven him to school and kept watch over his house and seen the way the Sheriff worries about his only son, the Disappointment. He’s used to the dismissive looks from teachers who just don’t get why this kid won’t shut up about the history of the male circumcision. He is perfectly aware that the consensus among the adult population about him is “nuisance”. 

Rafael McCall used to call him “the leech”. The white blouse guy at the pharmacy counter in Target calls him “Adderall overdose”. His shrink, I Think Freud Was A Swell Guy, calls him “Mr Stilinski” in a tone that says “you’re an asshole”.

But the thing is, he’s a puny sophomore, he’s a kid. He has the luxury not to care what old people think. He can’t help the way that he is, he just is, and fuck them all. 

Nobody’s ever told him there could be something outside this. Beacon Hills. The looks. The weight in his chest.

His mom told him bedside stories when he was little, and he was always the hero. He was a superhero or a detective or an explorer or a prince. She used to count on her fingers all the countries he would visit in his life, all the creatures, mythical and otherwise, he would meet. All the vessels he would pilot, all the people he would save. And then he grew up, and that was over. And then he had no one to tell him those stories anymore.

The wind has picked up, slapping him around as he races through the suburbs, making him shiver. He’s gotta tell someone. He turns left at the next intersection. He’ll tell Scott.Scott will be happy and excited for him and won’t try to persuade him he can’t do it. 

But the house is dark when he screeches to a halt in front of it. The door is closed and nobody answers his insistent, borderline hysterical knocking. It’s weird, when Scott’s not home and Mel is at the hospital, Derek’s usually there to yell at him to go away. Where would they- Oh, right. Today is Derek’s graduation. 

They’re all at the school watching him walk over a platform with a stupid hat on his head. Stiles’ dad probably joined Mel and Scott. He asked Stiles if he wanted to come with last night. Like Stiles is going to waste his time watching Derek get a piece of paper. He’s not leaving for college, so it’s not even good riddance.

Stiles sighs, walks back to his discarded bike. He’s just going to go home and play on the computer for a while. That’s gonna put the world back on its axis. 

But the thought is right there, scratching at his brain behind his right eyeball, persistent and annoying. When he was little, he wanted to be a cop like his dad. It looked so cool, the uniform, the badge, the gun. Now that he’s actually been in handcuffs (even though it was only to scare him for a few minutes), he’s not that into law enforcement anymore.

But music. It’s weird because it’s only been a handful of months and he was really determined to prove Shrinky McElbowPatches wrong in the beginning. And now it’s so important. It’s special. It doesn’t come easy, exactly, it’s just- natural. 

He studies the way notes are jotted down on a piece of sheet music, the way they combine to form a melody. He studies the way an instrument works to render the notes in its own unique way. Then he applies one to the other and creates something beautiful, and it’s unlike anything Stiles has ever done before. Music is easy to focus on, it draws Stiles in. He can hyperfocus for hours and when he comes to, he’s learned a whole new skill and his fingers can do stuff he didn’t know he could do. And there’s a whole ocean of stuff to learn, of skills to master, of music to discover. If his mom was right and Stiles is an explorer,  _ this _ is what he wants to explore.

Stiles gets home and collapses in the couch in front of the TV, zaps through channels quickly, trying to find something to switch his brain off. But that has never worked before and now’s no different. Going to college. A good college. Making music and thinking about music and learning about music. He’s always thought college was about science labs and white coats and ancient professors making you debate in Latin and keg stands.

He can’t picture his older self being one of these hipster kids you see on TV with a beanie and a pretentious scarf and fingerless gloves, guzzling coffee like it’s some kind of magic potion. Coffee’s gross and he doesn’t own a scarf.

He jumps off the couch, runs into his room, not bothering to turn the TV off. He grabs onto his guitar, runs through the first few bars of Fleetwood Mac’s Never Going Back Again. It’s like he’s flipped a switch. His brain quiets down, finally, finally, focusing on the precise fingerwork, the steel strings’ pressure on his already sore fingers. He breathes easily, lets the melody take over his body. He’s not himself now, he’s something new, something better. He breathes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is a quick interlude, then three chapters left, then the epilogue :)
> 
> thank you for reading and stuff! much love <3
> 
> TW for non-consensual kiss

**Present day**

His hands are clammy. They never are.

He’s pacing silently next to the raised platform where the flower arch stands. Guitar strapped to his shoulder, all plugged in and ready to go. Is he sweating through his dress shirt? He’s too nervous to check.

Liam is standing a few feet away, battling with his tie. Stiles keeps resisting the urge to rip it off his head and make him eat it. Who comes to a wedding high? He knows Scott has a soft spot for the kid but really? Making him a groomsman?

Speaking of, Scott is back to his happy, ecstatic self, thanks to whatever voodoo Derek performed on him. His suit is impeccable, not a wrinkle in sight, tie perfectly straight. He looks like a dream, talking excitedly to the minister off the side of the stage, rocking on the balls of his feet like a toddler in front of sweets.

A dude with long hair, a black t-shirt and a headset is fiddling with a console not far from them. He set up Stiles’ mic a few minutes ago, talked about touring with Fiends of the Black Death with pride. Good on him.

Stiles looks at his phone. Three minutes, exactly. No way is Lydia’s wedding ceremony starting late. Most rows of chairs are already filled with chattering, expectant faces. He spots his dad in his ancient blue suit, helping Lydia’s grandmother to her seat. His heart is thudding so loud in his chest, he’s pretty sure he won’t hear himself sing.

How does the song go again? How does it start? What key’s it in?

Fuck. He’s forgotten his own song, this is a disaster. Lydia will personally dismember him. He has to tell Scott he can’t do it, they should just have Goth Sound Guy blast All of Me as Lydia walks down the aisle or something. He can’t-

“Hey”, a deep voice distracts him from the edge of the panic attack he was about to throw himself into.

He turns around. It’s Derek. Of _course_ it is.

“You ok?”, he asks Stiles, eyebrows knitted in concern. Stiles looks at him, too bewildered to remember why he shouldn’t. The grey of Derek’s suit emphasises the green in his eyes. He used to be taller. They’re of a height now.

Stiles blinks, takes a step back. Right. This is Derek Hale. They are not friends. He looks at the scuffed point of his dress shoes.

“I’m, uh- n-nervous, is all.” Fuck, his voice is trembling. “It’s a- uh, big- thing, you know”, he waves his hand toward the rows of seats. “Beacon Hills”, he finishes lamely, hoping Derek gets the gist but doesn’t pry.

Derek follows his line of sight, takes in their families and friends and the entire fire department neatly aligned in front of the stage.

“Yeah”, he sighs. For a second Stiles wishes he knew him better, so he could detect a hint of nervousness in his voice. He shakes his head.

“Lydia will n-never forgive me if I mess up her entrance.” The sentence has escaped his lips without his permission. He scratches at his head, avoiding Derek’s eyes boring into him. He shouldn’t have said that.

Derek turns to look at the arch, examining the delicate flowers woven there, the same ones pinned to their lapels. Stiles glances at him quickly. He looks pensive, hands in his pant pockets. Stiles, meanwhile, is trying really hard not to vibrate out of his skin.

“I’m sure she’s pretty confident you won’t mess it up”, Derek says reasonably, looking up. He quirks a quick smile at Stiles. “After all, you didn’t at graduation.”

Stiles’ lungs do a weird thing that he tries to pass of as a scoff. “Can’t believe you’d bring that up n-now”, he mumbles to his knees.

Derek faces him fully and smiles, bunny teeth and everything and it’s- blinding. Stiles’ lungs can’t take the extra stress. He forgets how to breathe for a second.

Derek brings a hand up and squeezes Stiles’ shoulder. He hasn’t willfully touched Stiles since- well, that one time.

“You’re a great musician, Stiles”, Derek says seriously, like he knows Stiles and he has any right to just say stuff like that. Stiles is- Stiles isn’t sure he still has a voice.

“You’ll be great”, Derek adds with conviction, before letting go of Stiles and walking over to Scott to fuss over him one last time.

Stiles is. Stiles is. How he’s still standing and breathing is a mystery to him.

Then Goth Sound Guy is talking to his headset and telling Stiles it’s go time. Scott turns toward him to give him an eager smile and a thumbs up before he walks up the makeshift stage. Stiles’ mind goes on autopilot, his soul following close to his body but not quite connecting. He walks up to the mic stand, checks the height is just right. His eyes scan the crowd but the only thing he sees is a blur of heads looking up at him expectantly. Scott, Derek and Liam are standing to his left. Stiles knows for a fact Lydia placed little red cues where each of them are supposed to stand, but his mind can’t process the hilarity of this information right now.

The door to the café opens a sliver. Stiles takes a deep breath. The song floods back into his fingers, easy and flowing like it can’t be contained, like it was meant to stream out of him and into the world, like it was never really his and always theirs, his friends’, his family’s. He’s only a vessel for this music.

Just as he starts on the chorus, Allison steps out. She begins her slow march toward them, all smiles and grace, dimpling bright and beautiful. Stiles’ heart swells. He flashes back to graduation, all of them together, celebrating their bright futures sprawling before them and all of the fucked up paths they took to get there. The bright certainty of that day, the moment that carries Stiles in lonely times at Berkeley, is reflected right here, in Scott’s expectant pose, in Allison’s slow steps, in knowing that Lydia Martin is queen of the day.

Lydia appears. Stiles’ breath catches in his throat as the rows of chairs erupt into a collective sigh. Lucky he’s in the middle of an instrumental break. He steals a glance at Scott, wishes his buddy was facing him so he could see the emotion on his face. He starts singing again and looks back at Lydia to find her grinning right at him, the same smile she had four years ago in her cap and gown. Then she turns to Scott and breaks into an exultant smile, an expression mirrored, Stiles is pretty sure, on Scott’s face right now.

It’s as if they timed it, because Lydia steps up to the arch just as Stiles plays the finishing notes of his song. His ears are ringing as people clap and Lydia walks quickly to him to kiss his cheek. He squeezes her hand for a second, gives his guitar to Goth Sound Guy and walks to his tiny red cross between Scott and Derek with his eyes on his shoes, blood whooshing through his ears.

It’s a lovely, simple, heartfelt ceremony. Scott cries the whole time, but manages to let his vows ring clear and joyous. Stiles’ fingers tremble slightly as he presents Scott with the rings they picked out. Allison keeps smiling at him so big, but he’s not sure what his own face is doing in return. He’s incredibly full of love, he can’t even imagine how overwhelming this must be for Lydia and Scott. When Scott dips Lydia in a Hollywood kiss at the “you may kiss the bride”part, two rows of firefighters on Scott’s side get up and whoop.

Everyone is on their feet clapping and cheering. Scott and Lydia turn toward the audience, linked hands raised in triumph. It’s over. Stiles’ breath leaves him in a long exhale. A hand claps his back so hard he stumbles forward. He turns around and Liam is beaming at him, holding out his hand. Stiles shakes it out of deeply ingrained social cues as the kid babbles at him about how “your… song or whatever, it was so cool, dude! We should totally jam!” Stiles rolls his eyes as discreetly as he can manage.

He catches sight of Derek smirking at him from the corner of his eye. He stops to look at him. Derek looks back. Stiles is certain this has never happened before, and he doesn’t know if it is the stress of the song, the emotion of the wedding, the ridiculousness of Liam, the abundance of people milling around, or just Beacon Hills, but. He’s looking at Derek and he can’t stop looking and he’s, uhm. _Feeling_ stuff. Which is new.

His dad finds him and hugs him and talks about how Berkeley is money well spent. Stiles is pulled into the crowd, shaking hands and trying to come up with actual words to respond to people’s exclamations of astonished praise. But he keeps looking. He keeps looking as Derek walks down to hug Melissa and greet their cousins. And Derek keeps looking back.

::

**Four years ago**

“The shop will be closed until the fifteenth of July for annual vacation. Please call back from the sixteenth on”, the answering machine drones on at Stiles. Shit shit shit fuck shit. He’s so _fucked_. He hits his head on the steering wheel a couple dozen times for good measure, then gets out of the car and contemplates the fuming mess of his engine. Duct tape won’t fix this. He closes the hood delicately, resigned.

Just his luck. Three days after graduation, he’s finally free. He drives twenty miles out of town to pick up his graduation gift and his car breaks down on the way back, seven fucking miles away from his home. And _of course_ his usual auto shop is closed for annual vacation. That Stiles probably funded in its entirety, given how often the Jeep needs repairs. He loves his baby, he does, but seriously, he’s hemorrhaging money faster than he can give ten-year-olds piano lessons.

He sighs, arms crossed over his chest, contemplating his options. He could leave the car on the side of the road, walk the seven miles home and come back later for his graduation gift with his dad’s cruiser. He’s leaving in August, he could wait till mid-July to get the car repaired. But then he’d be wheel-less for over a month, and no way in hell is he riding on Scott’s motorbike. He could call an auto shop out of town, pay a fortune in extra fees for the commute. Or.

Or there’s the unthinkable option. He could call Joe’s shop, the one that’s barely two miles from where he’s currently stranded. He knows for a fact it’s open today, too. And maybe, just maybe, Stiles will get lucky and someone else will pick his car up. He might not even see him at all. He’s far from the only mechanic working at Joe’s.

What are the chances, seriously? What are the chances of Derek Hale wanting to be a mechanic and starting his apprenticeship in the biggest, most popular auto shop in Beacon Hills the year Stiles turned sixteen?

All the goddam kids who got a car for their birthday that year and were even slightly attracted to men regaled the whole class, and Stiles by very unfortunate extension, with tales of the really hot, really popular ex-senior and Baseball Captain Derek Hale becoming a sexy, surly mechanic. Stiles had spent many a lunch hour in Junior year silently begging for someone to hit him with a shovel. He was finally out of their school, for Satan’s sake. The last thing Stiles wanted to do was hear how Kenzie slashed the tires of her Prius so that she could try and ask Eyebrows of Doom to Junior prom. That was enough to put anyone off their slice of room-temperature pizza.

That summer, when Stiles had finally needled permission to drive his mom’s Jeep out of his dad, he drove to the first (and only) shop in town that didn’t employ Derek’s mediocre mechanical skills and asked if they had some sort of frequent customer discount plan.

Not so distantly, the deep staccatos of a thunderstorm make themselves heard. Ok, fuck this.

Stiles dials Joe’s number, eyes firmly shut. An efficiently cordial woman answers the phone, takes note of his coordinates and car problems, and tells him a mechanic will be there shortly. He doesn’t even have time to ask which mechanic before she hangs up on him. Nice. Very nice. At least Al answers the phone himself. Because he doesn’t have any staff to do it for him.

He waits, leaning on the side of the Jeep, arms crossed, hoping for a miracle. It doesn’t come. After a few minutes, a red tow truck appears, stops feet away from his car. Out comes Derek Hale, complete with aviator shades and black t-shirt, like he just finished fixin’ up Greased Lightning. The thing he wears best, though, is his scowl. Truly an A-grade scowl, ten out of ten, would piss off again.

He makes his way to Stiles slowly, like he has all the time in the world and is not, actually, on the clock. Stiles hates him so much, he feels the hair on his arms stand up.

“Trouble with your car?” Derek asks, eyes fixed on the hood of the Jeep.

Stiles chews on a nonexistent piece of gum, trying to hold back the “no shit, Sherlock” struggling to make it past his lips. “Yes.” He kicks at a piece of gravel, just because.

“Huh”, Derek says intelligently.

Great.

“Can you pop the hood for me?” Derek asks.

Stiles executes himself with as much hostility as he can muster. Derek takes a look under the hood, comes back up studiously avoiding Stiles’ eyes.

“Gotta bring it down to the shop.”

No duh.

“Fine”, Stiles cries, throwing his hands into the air. “Just tow it, jeez.”

Derek smirks, like he’s enjoying torturing Stiles. What else is new. He walks leisurely to the tow truck and back, tools in hand. Stiles stands there looking at him, arms crossed.

“Are you going to overcharge me like crazy?” Stiles asks. He spent a little fortune of his graduation gift (even though his dad helped, a lot) and now is not the best time for car troubles. And asshole mechanics. “Because that’s fraud. Probably.”

Derek ignores him, busy hooking up the car to the tow truck. Stiles fidgets. Should he be worried Derek might cut off his brakes or place a bomb in his engine? Probably not, right?

Derek straightens up, testing the hook’s resistance. He glances at Stiles. “I liked your song”, he says, catching Stiles off guard. “At graduation. It was… fun.”

What fresh hell is this? Stiles winds his arms tighter around himself, tries for a scowl. It’s certainly not as good as Derek’s, given the difference in eyebrow density, but from the way his forehead kinda hurts, he’s pretty sure it’s working.

Derek has no right to take graduation from him. He’d plotted with Scott, Allison and some kids from their grade to surprise Lydia right before her Valedictorian speech, as a way to honor her brilliance. They wheeled out the band piano on stage and he performed a souped up version of Queen’s We Are The Champions, switching all the “we” to “she”. It had been worth the laughs and faculty eye rolls for the way Lydia had strutted up on stage, pink with pleasure and looking profoundly murderous. At the end of her speech, she had blown him a kiss, and though he’d hopped off the “desperately in love with Lydia Martin” bandwagon a couple years ago, his heart had swelled with pride.

That memory is worth much more to him than getting his actual diploma. His dad is still humming the song under his breath when he thinks Stiles can’t hear him.

Derek Hale can make fun of him for it, but he’ll take no shit. He’s proud of it. Fuck the haters.

“Whatever man”, he says. “It wasn’t meant for you anyway.”

Derek slams the hood of the Jeep, making Stiles’ jump.

“Dude! Can you, like, be careful?!” he shrieks.

Derek scowls harder somehow. “Why are you-”, he cuts himself off, looks down at his hands. “Nevermind”, he growls. He sighs through his nostrils, like he’s frustrated or something. _He_ ’s frustrated. With Stiles. What a joke.

Stiles rolls his eyes with his whole head. “No dude, by all means. Sharing is caring.”

Derek looks up at him, furious. Stiles wills himself not to take a step back.

“What?” he throws at Derek.

Derek steps toward him. This is it. This is the time Stiles gets beaten to a pulp. He should have hugged his dad before he left. He’s never going to see Berkeley’s Hertz Hall of Music. He always knew he was going to die young.

Derek stops about a foot from Stiles, piercing every part of him with his glare, which is quite impressive up close. Stiles swallows.

“I was trying”, Derek says in a quiet, deadly tone, “to pay you a compliment.”

Stiles scrunches up his nose. “So you can make fun of me later?”

Derek shakes his head slowly. “No.”

“Why then?”

Derek looks at him. And looks and looks. Stiles keeps bracing himself for the first punch, but it doesn’t come.

Then it happens. Derek puts a warm, wide hand on the nape of his neck, pulls Stiles closer to him gently. He bridges the gap between them and kisses him. On the lips. A simple, gentle peck. On the lips. Stiles’ brain is a cacophony of warning bells, but it kind of short-circuits at the first feel of stubble. On his lips.

When he regains any sense of anything, Derek has stepped back. His hands are in his pockets and he’s looking at Stiles, unreadable, a closed book. Stiles is… well, Stiles is furious.

“What-!” he splutters. “Why would you-!!”

He can’t finish a sentence, but he thinks his point is pretty much made. He can feel Derek’s breath washing over his face. This is a nightmare.

Derek shrugs, looking around at the car, the road. “You asked me a question. I answered.”

“What kind of answer-” Stiles picks up steam, “was that?” he yells, flailing his arms around.

Derek’s gaze washes over him, intense. “Goodbye, I guess”, Derek says softly.

“I’m not leaving for another two months!” Stiles counters instinctively. He knows it’s not the actual issue here, but his reasoning skills are shaky at the moment.

Derek sighs, annoyed. “Fine then. It’s a graduation gift. Congratulations.”

“A gift?!” Stiles shrills, indignant. “What kind of a gift is this?”

“Well, it’s your first kiss, isn’t it?” Derek answers soberly, a mocking tilt to his voice.

Stiles splutters. “I have kissed people before!”

Derek frowns, nods. “Sure you have”, he says sarcastically.

He did! On the first day of Senior year a new girl named Malia sort of imprinted on Stiles. She was a wild, unpredictable girl who’d been home-schooled by her depressed dad up to that point. She was beautiful, too. When she grabbed his arm and didn’t let go, he sort of went along with it. They dated, meaning she kept touching him and punching him and scratching him and making out with him inexpertly, until she got bored and found someone more willing. Stiles was left baffled and not very sad to see it end.

But the point is, he didn’t wait for Derek Hale to land one on him in the middle of nowhere for his first kiss to happen.

“Why would you kiss me?” Stiles all but yells, waving his arms wildly around him. “You hate me. We hate each other. We have been banned from sitting within a hundred feet of each other in the bleachers at Lacrosse games. You’re always finding a reason to make me go ballistic and then walking away like an asshole. You don’t kiss people without a word of warning! You just don’t kiss,” he repeats, feeling the argument get away from him, “people you hate.”

Derek’s eyebrows are back to their usual Murder position. He shrugs, defensive. “I just wanted to.” He looks down. “Sorry if it was so horrible for you.”

Stiles throws his arms up again. “That’s not even the point!”

But it’s no use. Derek is being his usual uncommunicative, asshole self. The only possible explanation Stiles can come up with off the top of his head is that Derek was suddenly possessed by a kissing spirit. Yeah, it totally makes sense. The guy in front of him, the Greaser-wannabe studiously examining the Jeep’s tires and avoiding the waves of pure rage he sends off, no way would that guy kiss Stiles if he knew what he were doing.

Spirits. They ruin lives.

“You should change your tires before you leave”, Derek mutters apropos of nothing.

Stiles’ brain is on the verge of exploding. “You know what?” he says, trying to get a grip on his fury. “You tow the car. I’ll walk home.”

Derek looks up at him, dubious. “It’s about seven miles to your house.” He peers up at the sky. “And it’s going to start raining soon.”

Stiles is already opening the car door to grab his jacket and keys, tossing his car keys at Derek. “Thank you so much for your input, but I think I need the exercise!”

He starts stomping his feet toward what he’s at least eighty percent sure is the fastest way home.

“Stiles”, Derek calls behind him.

Stiles doesn’t turn around, waves an arm over his head. “Goodbye! Tell Scott when the car’s fixed, I’ll come pick it up.”

He gets home roughly two hours later, drenched to the bone, sneakers soaked through. It was worth it, he keeps telling himself, for not having to spend another second in the company of Derek fucking Hale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scott is a year younger than Stiles and Lydia because he skipped a grade in kindergarten. Allison is a year older bc I think that's canon, maybe?
> 
> the kiss will be addressed in a later chapter, don't yell at me about it just yet
> 
> also I'm not sure if it will be mentioned in a later chapter, so I want you guys to know Derek became a mechanic because he inherited the Camaro from Laura after the fire and spent a lot of time fixing it up while thinking of his family, and that helped him with his grief :) :) :)


	11. a Bedchel interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a short interlude before we go back to our regular programming.   
> I thought it would be nice to have a moment between Allison and Lydia in the middle of this sausage fest.
> 
> thank you for reading!

Maybe Stiles is biased because he knows things, but shouldn’t she try harder not to look pregnant? Allison is sitting at the newlyweds’ table, watching Lydia and Scott do their happy and cutesy young couple thing on the dance floor. She’s literally _glowing_. It’s like there’s a spotlight pointed right at her belly and the DJ’s playing Isn’t She Lovely. People may be stupid and drunk, but one look at her and they will _know_.

Stiles should do something. The wedding party is in full swing, dinner and speeches done with, and Stiles has had so much booze (his and hers) at this point, he’s kind of scared of what he might do if he keeps drinking. Much better to get into other people’s business than try and fix his own.

He catches sight of a flash of bunny teeth and resolutely turns away from it, toward Allison. He was given a mission. He’s gonna stick to it. And if he has to keep avoiding Derek to do it, well, really he’s just being mature and doing the right thing. The voice in his brain that sounds just like Scott is going to have to shut the fuck up.

Anyway. Allison. Yes.

He plops down on the empty seat next to her. She doesn’t even notice him, lost in her quiet contemplation. He clears his throat in the loudest, fakest way.

That does it. She turns her head toward him slowly, already frowning. Rude.

“How’s it going, mama bear?”

Allison’s eyes glaze over for a second. Uh oh.

She smiles at him, all deadly sweetness. “You remember I am still an Olympic-trained archer, right?”

Stiles knows, and he’s respectfully afraid. He’s still Stiles, though. So he smiles back, leans his head on his fist. “How far along are you?”

Allison takes a sip of her water. “Just cleared the first trimester.”

Stiles nods. He doesn’t know a lot about pregnant people, but he knows that’s good.

She looks at him sharply. Alarm bells start ringing in his head as she opens her mouth. “So what’s going on with you and Derek?”

“What?” is Stiles’ very poor attempt at deflecting. “Who?” he goes for next. That’s worse. He resists the urge to facepalm.

Allison’s smile turns vicious. “Oh”, she says. “That bad, huh?”

Stiles makes a face. That bad what? That bad nothing. There’s nothing bad because there’s nothing at all and he, frankly, has no idea what she’s talking about. He searches for something to do instead of choking. Allison’s champagne glass is thankfully sitting there, losing its bubbles. He lunges for it like a dying man, downs it in gluttonous gulps.

He winces, because champagne is not beer and you’re not supposed to just chug it.

Allison is looking at him like he’s a very amusing new toy, which is such a Lydia look, Stiles doesn’t know if he should be aroused or scared. Honestly, he’s a bit of both.

“Nothing is a thing that’s going on”, Stiles defends poorly. “There is _nothing_ ”, he stresses, “between _me_ ”, he points at himself, “and…“ He points to the left, in the general direction of the bar.

Allison doesn’t look rightfully put in her place by his sound argument.

“I hate him. I have _always_ hated him”, Stiles piles on. It kinda feels like he’s digging himself a hole to die in, but hey! he’s a person who can exist in real life.

Allison chuckles at his misery. She leans toward him, elbows on the table.

“Listen, Stiles”, she starts, all motherly advice and stuff. Stiles does not like it one bit.

He’s saved by a heavy weight dropping from the sky directly into his lap. He yelps. Lydia shushes him.

The bride is sitting on his lap. Why.

“Hey, uhm”, he interjects, gets a mouthful of lace, fluff and raspberry blond curls. He coughs them out of his mouth, pokes Lydia’s delicately uncovered shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be sitting on, you know, your husband or something? Or, like, a chair?”

Stiles feels like he has a solid argument here and Lydia will go “you know what, you’re right, Stiles, I will sit down on the chair that is right next to you instead of letting my tiny body made out of thin, sharp bones ruthlessly poke your tender thighs”. That would be the reasonable thing to do, but Stiles has known Lydia for decades and never once did she let him be the voice of reason.

She throws a “shut it, Stilinski” over her shoulder and doesn’t even bother looking at him.

Stiles contorts his spine in weird ways so that he can look over Lydia’s shoulder at, well, anything that isn’t a cascade of elaborate, shiny tresses that keep tickling his nose.

Lydia’s piercing Allison with a knowing gaze. To her credit, Allison plays innocent better than anyone he’s ever known. She’s not even fidgeting. Stiles would have disintegrated by now.

“You’re pregnant”, Lydia states.

Stiles splutters, chokes on more hair in the process. Allison simply nods. What a badass.

“You _are_?” Lydia asks, tone full of wonder.

Allison smiles. “I am!”

Stiles doesn’t know exactly what happens but suddenly they’re hugging and Lydia’s ass is digging into the meat of his legs and ow ow ow.

They break apart and Lydia settles herself more comfortably on Stiles’ lap. He wants to weep with relief, a little bit.

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” Lydia asks, the slightest hint of accusation in her tone.

Allison looks at the bubbles popping to the surface of another champagne flute that magically appeared before them. “It’s your day”, she explains. “I didn’t want to pull the focus from you.”

Lydia fidgets. Stiles’ groan of pain is rewarded by an over-the-shoulder slap on the arm, like he’s being a bad dog. Why does he like these people again?

“This is not a rom-com”, Lydia says derisively. “I’m perfectly able and willing to share whatever good news my family gets.” She stops, cocks her head. “This is good news, right?”

Allison looks up at her. They have a silent telepathic conversation Stiles is not privy to because he’s still trying to breathe without inhaling Lydia’s hair. Then Alison is dabbing at her eyes with a napkin and Lydia lets out a long, happy sigh and all in all it seems like it was a nice telepathic conversation.

“Hey”, Stiles interjects, thinking about maybe getting the feeling back in his numb toes, but he’s aggressively shushed by both women. His life, seriously.

“So what’s the plan?” Lydia asks, always straight to the point, where it hurts.

Allison looks at her nails intently. “I’m not sure. I thought maybe”, she hedges, “I would move back here?”

Lydia bounces happily, making Stiles cry really manly tears. “That’s great! I would love to have you and my godchild closer”, she says, the perfect picture of a benevolent queen.

Allison dimples warmly at her, like she’s missed this facet of Lydia. Stiles did too, for about 0.05 seconds. “It’s weird”, she says wonderingly, “how much this place still feels like home, you know?”

Stiles swallows. Lydia nods like it’s obvious.

“Even though I thought, after my mom-”, she cuts herself off, looks down at her hands.

Lydia and Stiles stay silent and still. They all remember the freak accident Mrs Argent got into during their Senior year. Allison and her father’s grief had rippled through their friendship group for months afterwards, ultimately causing Allison and Scott to break up for good.

Allison looks up, no trace of a single tear in sight, and shakes her head, chuckling. “Well, you guys know.” She extends her hand, Lydia takes it in hers. “Anyway, France has been good, but I think the rest of my life is here.” She looks around at the party, the crowd of people they’ve known forever dancing, drinking and laughing. “I want my kid to grow up around people who will love them. I know I’ll find that here.”

Stiles tries to be as surreptitious as possible about using a strand of Lydia’s hair to wipe his glistening eyes. Lydia herself is suspiciously silent.

Stiles clears his throat, trying to get his friends’ attention. “Maybe we could-”, he manages to get out before Lydia snaps an efficient “shut up, Stiles!” He opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water before giving up, reclining on the chair and resigning himself to not being a part of this conversation.

Allison’s eyes sparkle at him for a second before focusing on Lydia. “What about you, Lyd? Now that you’ve locked that down”, she says, pointing at where Scott is twirling his ten year old cousin on the dance floor, looking all sweet and prince-charming-like, “what’s the next step?”

Lydia looks at her new husband for a while, shrugs. “I honestly don’t know.” She looks back at Allison, whipping her hair back, a few strands hitting Stiles in the face. “Scott wasn’t part of the first plan, and it turned out pretty well”, she says humbly, in her wedding dress, at a party celebrating the greatness of their love. “I guess I am not so scared, now, to find out what happens when you don’t make plans.”

Is it Stiles or is it getting really hot? He squirms, wanting to take off his jacket as discreetly as possible without disturbing the quiet moment Lydia and Allison are enjoying, lost in each other’s eyes. But all he gets for his troubles is pure agony as Lydia turns her bony hips on his lap and gives him the judgiest look known to man.

“Quit fidgeting, Stilinski”, she orders, all the candor and fragility of a second ago forgotten. She glances over Stiles’ shoulder then frowns right back at him. “What’s happening between you and Derek, anyway?”

Stiles needs to find new friends asap. Definitely.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is I, manboobs, still updating Sterek fic in the year of our Lord 2k19.  
> The time of Camp Nano is upon us once again, so I expect this fic will get done this month. :)
> 
> The fist part of this chapter is Stiles POV, but the second part is Derek POV :) enjoy the pain and hurt :D  
> and as always, THANK YOU so much for sticking with me this far.

**Present day**

He looks at him. He can’t help himself. It’s like his eyes are magnetized to him, laser-focused and GPS-operated. Stiles is talking to great-grandma Martin, surveying her champagne intake as Lydia instructed him to. He looks slightly to the left. There he is. He’d taken off his jacket after the traditional wedding party pictures. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up over his forearms, revealing a dark trail of hair over defined muscle. Stiles takes a sip.

He tries to be as stealthy as possible as he exchanges his empty flute against Allison’s full one, his eyes scan the crowd for unwanted onlookers. His gaze stutters and stops on Derek holding Mel’s hand at the bar, his back to him. He can’t help but notice the beautiful lines of him, the width of his shoulder stretching the thin material of his shirt, tapering down a strong back into a thin waist. Stiles throws Allison’s flute back in one go.

He’s in line for the bathroom, making awkward small talk with one of Lydia’s friends from MIT and fiddling with his phone. MIT dude is in the middle of a boring story about his parents’ boat and a misplaced case of French champagne when Derek emerges from said bathroom. Stiles looks up in surprise. They lock eyes. Stiles feels unfairly caught out. Derek opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He closes his mouth, frowns, looks down. The connection is cut. Brad or Chad or whatever steps into the bathroom as Derek hurries back to the party and out of Stiles’ sight.

He gets back to the party a few minutes later, trying to shake the weird feeling of longing settled uneasily in his stomach.

“Son!”, his dad calls from the bar, where he’s catching his breath after a rather rowdy bit of dancing with the bride. Stiles walks over to him, smirking. The old man is panting, elbows on the counter, holding onto his beer like a lifeline. He looks like he got more than what he was bargaining for, which is how men usually look like after Lydia is done with them.

“Hey old man”, he greets. They haven’t had a chance to talk in the past few days, Stiles busy with wedding stuff and his dad pulling extra shifts at the station so he could take tonight off. It’s nice to find him here, in the middle of Scott and Lydia’s relatives and people Stiles hasn’t seen since high school. The familiar, frayed blue suit, the smirk, the kind blue eyes... Stiles breathes a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding onto.

He settles at the bar next to his dad, asks the bartender for a glass of water. His dad arches an eyebrow.

“Gotta slow it down”, he explains, shrugging. He can’t exactly tell him that he’s been drinking double dose of champagne all day, so he goes for the next best thing. “The night is young.”

His dad scoffs. “I’m exhausted”, he says, shaking his head in disbelief. He looks to where Lydia’s dancing with her dad, an elaborate, ballroom dance-y sort of waltz. It looks like they’re competing at the World Dance Masters and blowing the competition out of the water.

“Lydia got you good, uh?”, Stiles teases. He expects a chuckle in return, but all he gets is a frown and a concerned look.

“What?”, he asks.

His dad clears his throat, looks at their drinks, stalling. This is not going to be good.

“I know you’re putting on a brave face, son”, he says carefully. “I want you to know, I’m proud of you.” He looks at Stiles, serious and intense and fatherly. “You’re doing the right thing.”

Stiles’ heart beats double tempo. His face heats up. Is- is his dad seriously- how does he even _know_ about- did Lydia put him up to this?

“Listen, dad-”, he starts, trying to keep his voice level, “it isn’t-”

“You don’t have to pretend with me, Stiles”, his dad cuts him off. “I know it’s hard for you to see Lydia marry someone else.”

Oh. That’s… Well.

Stiles chuckles, eyes on where their elbows are resting on the bar. That’s unexpected. And awkward.

His dad is looking at him expectantly, probably worried he pushed Stiles to admit his undying love for his best friend’s bride a bit too hard.

Stiles clears his throat. He looks his dad in the eye, claps a hand on his shoulder for good measure. He’ll only say this once, so it’s crucial that his dad believes him. “I do _not_ ”, he says, “have feelings for Lydia.” Stern and non-nonsense and authoritative. Sheriff-y. “This particular ship sailed about six years ago”, he adds. “But I appreciate your concern.”

His dad considers his words carefully. He furrows his brow. “You sure?”

Stiles nods his head vehemently. “ _Yes_.”

The Sheriff turns to the bartender and signals for another beer. He turns back to Stiles, nods once, as if to settle the argument. “Fine, then.”

Stiles sighs in triumph. Crisis averted.

“Then why have you been behaving like this wedding is the worst thing to ever happen to you?” his dad asks, clearly not able to let it go. His eyes widen. “Wait. Is it Scott you’re in love with?”

Stiles gets the sudden urge to bite his tongue off. “No!” he all but yells.

The Sheriff raises his eyebrows in a “for real” kind of way.

“I am not in-”, he looks around them, lowers his voice, “I am not in love with Scott, dad.” Why do parents need to be so goddamn embarrassing?

His dad raises both hands in surrender, but doesn’t look convinced. “If you say so.”

Maybe Stiles should do shots. Or have someone shoot _him_. “I just...”

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to justify himself. He could try to change the subject or run really fast in the opposite direction. But he’s here clutching his half empty glass of water having the weirdest discussion of his life with his dad. And once he had the “I want to go to college for music learning” conversation with him, so. Weird conversations have been had.

Stiles sighs, looks around. Most of the people remaining are on the younger side. A few relatives of Scott’s staying with Melissa, friends from Lydia’s MIT days, people they knew in high school, a bunch of firemen… Liam’s asleep on a chair close by. They all look happy. It’s the definition of a perfect wedding. Stiles feels unmoored. Out of place. Weird. He loves his friends so much, but he feels like he’s not from here, like he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t know how to say that to the man facing him, the man who gave him this life, and kept loving him even as Stiles rejected it.

He doesn’t know who he is, but he knows he’s not this. He’s not the person getting married or having a kid at twenty-one. He’s not the person who doesn’t worry about what the future will hold. He doesn’t know what home feels like and where to look for it. When he’s in Berkeley, surrounded by kids his age working just as hard as he is to try and figure all this out, it’s fine. But here it feels like it’s not enough. He poured his soul into his music and he worked so hard. He hates that it doesn’t seem like enough in this town. Because it’s everything to him.

His dad chuckles, pulling him out of his distressing thoughts. He’s looking at Scott, a smirk on his face. He turns a conspiratorial look toward Stiles. “Every time I look over at the happy couple, I cannot believe I’m at the wedding of the kid who taught you how to make fart noises with your armpits.”

Stiles smiles at the memory. “I know”, he agrees. “Remember when he wrote this poem in third grade, and all the rhymes were burps?”

The Sheriff is laughing now, shaking his head. “So gross”, he says. He sobers up, eyes Stiles wistfully. “You’re all so grown up.”

Stiles snorts. “Shoulda seen him at his bachelor party”, he counters, but his dad doesn’t pick up on the subject.

He looks at Stiles with a mixture of parental worry and love and- well, mostly worry.

Maybe now is the right time to beat a hasty retreat. “Hey”, Stiles says, “I just remembered Allison asked me to-”

“You know”, his dad talks over him, “that you can count on me, right?”

That shuts Stiles right up. “Uh, sure?”

“If you need money, or advice”, he plows on, “or if you need to move back home after graduation, that’s- you know you have a home here, right?”

Stiles takes a second to ask himself if his dad can in fact read his mind and has been lying about it for over twenty years. He resolutely doesn’t freak out about it. “That’s- uhm. Thanks dad”, he says, awkward.

“I mean it, Stiles”, the Sheriff insists. “I know you don’t- uhm. I’m not saying you have to figure out what you’re going to do after Berkeley right now, but you can-”, he sighs, tries to catch Stiles’ eyes, “you can come home, son.”

Stiles’ brain makes a weird whirring noise, like it’s rebooting. This is- damn. Getting cornered by his dad at his best friend’s wedding… he should have seen it coming. This _is_ the perfect place for an intervention.

He takes an extra second to try and formulate his thoughts slowly, delicately. “Dad, I’m not sure that’s-”

His dad puts up a hand to stop him. Stiles shuts his mouth, looks up at him. His dad is giving him this sad smile he wears when he’s thinking of his mom. Stiles’ heart beats painfully in his chest.

“You don’t need to say anything right now, Stiles”, his dad assures him. “I just- wanted you to know you can count on- this. If you want.”

Stiles finally meets his dad’s gaze head on. “I know, dad. Thank you.”

They’re hugging. His dad is clapping him on the back with a bit too much force and Stiles is trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. He steps back, hoping this is the end of all this heartfelt awkwardness, but his dad keeps holding on to him by the shoulder.

“And one last thing”, he says, back to his usual, Sheriff-dad self.

Godammit.

“Whaaaat”, Stiles whines.

His dad points a finger right under his nose. “Even if you say you’re not in love with Scott or Lydia”, he ignores Stiles’ shout of protest, “you shouldn’t be afraid to put yourself out there and go after what - or who - you want. I know it’s scary and life is messy and sometimes things… get in the way. But you and I, we know”, he swallows, “life is too short, son. And whatever, whoever you choose, I’ll support you.”

Stiles tries really hard not to cry. From embarrassment. He’s never been this mortified in his life. He really hopes nobody overheard them, oh my god.

“Thanks, dad”, he says through gritted teeth, and his dad nods, eyes glittering slightly. He releases him. Stiles hooks a thumb over his shoulder.

“I’m gonna go, uhm. See with Allison if- yeah”, he finishes lamely as he tries to get away from this whole conversation as fast as humanly possible.

The Sheriff just flags the bartender for another beer, watching him go.

::

**Six years ago**

Derek remembers this place too well. He wishes he had forgotten. There are a lot of things from two years ago he wishes he had forgotten. His placement court hearing is not the main one.

The details of it are hazy, though. He’d spent a lot of it looking down. He remembers it was the first and only time he’d seen Melissa out of her nurse clogs. He looks down and slightly to the left, just to check. She’s wearing the same black, flat shoes she was wearing then. It might be the only pair of formal shoes she has.

As far as he knows, Mel is either at the hospital, running errands, or at home. She doesn’t have much of a social life outside of her family. Derek wonders if she’s sad about that. She must be. He should offer to do some of the cooking, or grocery shopping, when they get home. That would be a nice gesture.

He looks around the dim, busy courthouse. It’s much dinkier than in TV shows, dusty and old, full of shuffling administrative-types and uniformed, bored guards. The floors are off white, fake marble. Their steps reverberate in the hallway as they walk briskly to their assigned court.

They round a corner and there he is. Tall and imposing in his usual black, rumpled suit. Derek’s shoulders tense involuntarily. Next to him, Melissa stumbles on a step, catches herself on Scott’s shoulder. Scott looks- God, it’s hard to look at him.

Derek wonders if he looked the same two years ago. Small, inconsolable. Incredibly alone. He probably did.

Melissa’s counsel strides toward them on high heels, talking fast and low to Melissa. She told them yesterday with a reassuring, lawyer-patented smile, that it was a simple, standard divorce hearing, that custody wouldn’t be an issue, that the law always favors mothers, they had nothing to worry about. She looks a lot less self-assured today.

They wait in the hallway, Mr McCall and his lawyer on one side, Melissa, Derek and Scott and their lawyer on the other. Scott’s back is to the wall, shoulders hunched, gaze fixed on the floor. He keeps stealing glances the way they came, looking hopeful. He doesn’t once look at his dad.

Derek leans against the wall next to Scott, trying to make himself as unimposing as he can. He’s still not sure he should be here, but Melissa insisted, saying they should do this “as a family”.

It twists something in his stomach, when she or Scott refers to them, to him, as “family”. It’s a complicated feeling, painful and warm. Most of his feelings are complicated now. At least he has them.

He can’t help but look at Rafael McCall, his tall frame, the sad looks he keeps throwing his son. It feels like a boulder in his throat, the role he played in the unraveling of this family. He’d reacted on instinct, saw Scott fall and Rafael standing over him, looking at his son with shock. Derek had- snapped. One second he was lurking in the shadows of the hallway, the next he was hauling Rafael McCall away from his wife and child by the collar, and throwing him out of his house.

A wave of fury, red behind his eyelids. Then Melissa’s hand was on his shoulder and he could breathe again, fill his lungs with oxygen, take stock of his racing heart, his strained muscles. Rafael’s car had already rounded the street corner and disappeared from view.

He stayed with Melissa while she made sure Scott was alright. He was too ashamed to go back to his room, so he stayed all night, awake, watching over Scott’s quietly snoring form. He stayed and waited.

The next morning, he tried to apologize, but Melissa wouldn’t have it. She hugged him, a proper mom hug. He melted into it. It’d been so long. He hadn’t realized how touch-starved he was until someone had their arms around him. Melissa thanked him. _Thanked_ him. She said he had protected them and she was proud of him. She was glad he was part of her family. The stomach twist, the warmth, the pain. His eyes prickled.

The first few weeks after the fire are a blur, with some flashes of clarity. He remembers everything from the morning before his life went up in flames. Every single detail.

Waking up grumpy for early practice, like every Wednesday. Getting to drive Laura’s Camaro while she lazed around in bed for another hour. Peter drove her and Cora to school on Wednesdays, they got Egg McMuffins at McDonalds on the way, it was their thing. And Derek was a bit jealous of it. But driving the Camaro made up for that. Getting pulled out of second period, the principal’s office, the look on his face. The rush in his ears as the world imploded.

He remembers the Sheriff’s office. Piercing blue eyes looking down at him, explaining in careful, measured words what had happened over and over. Derek kept saying he didn’t understand, like a mantra. But he did. His dad had been complaining about the outdated electrical board in the garage for years. Each spring, Derek’s mom would call a contractor, jot down a few numbers, exchange whispered conversations with her husband, and decide to table it for another year. The fire that swallowed Derek’s house left no survivors.

He remembers adults in beige uniforms trying to find out if he had any family left somewhere. But all the remaining Hales lived in that big house in the woods that used to scare the town’s children. He told them. They kept asking. “We’re trying to find a place for you to go”, the Sheriff had told him kindly, a crease between his eyebrows. He left to make a phone call and came back some time later with a pretty, kind-faced woman in nurse scrubs.

He looks at her now, her head bowed to listen to her lawyer’s fast-paced legal advice. It’s hard to reconcile the stranger he met her two years ago with the warm, loving woman he knows now.

Melissa had explained to Derek then, sitting on the Sheriff’s couch next to him, that she’d known her mom from the hospital. That she would like to invite him to stay with her family for a little while. That she had a son named Scott and that she and her husband had been looking into becoming a foster family for a while. That they had a room ready for him with everything he would need, if he wanted. If he wanted.

Derek wanted to go home. He wanted to sink into the plushy couch in front of the TV with Cora tucked into his side, and maybe even allow his mom to run her hand through his hair, if he could act annoyed about it.

He kept thinking he’d never been to a funeral.

The nurse with the wide, empathetic brown eyes kept looking at him. She kind of looked like his mom, if he squinted. Derek shrugged his assent.

There was a whole lot of void. Time passed in a vacuum, between staring contests with the ceiling in the McCalls’ guest bedroom (“your room”, Melissa insisted) and school. There was the funeral, the foster placement hearing, the execution of his parents’ will. Through all of it, he felt nothing.

He was alive. His heart beat, his head hurt. He went to practice, he took notes in class, he drove Laura’s car to school. He kept his head down in hallways. He tried to be mindful of Scott, Melissa’s thirteen year old son. Cora’s age. He ate, he tried to sleep. He ran around the block sometimes in the very early morning. He was empty.

But he was a teenage athlete too, and he was hungry. Melissa would come home from the hospital, overflowing paper bags held in each arm, and the pots and pans banging in the kitchen were like a call of the wild to Derek. He would propel himself out of the bedroom and sit at the kitchen island, watch her cut through vegetables with speed and assurance as she made them a home-cooked meal, while she rambled happily at him, sharing gory details from her latest shift.

It was like a remnant from his old life, a strange homage to the inhabitants of the Hale house. They’d all used to gather in the kitchen around dinner time and listen to the one who was most animated or irritated or had the coolest news to share, yap endlessly about their day while their mom passed around food to be chopped and diced and sautéed.

It hurt, and it felt warm, and peaceful. It felt like feelings, again.

Derek would find himself nodding at Melissa’s stories, smiling back when she laughed, or accepting an affectionate pat on the shoulder. Sometimes Scott would join them, sit next to Derek and throw him timid glances. His face betrayed a mix of quiet fascination and intense empathy. He kept having these unprompted gestures of kindness for Derek, that caught him completely off guard.

Scott would show up to watch his baseball practices from time to time, or pack an extra lunch in the morning for Derek. He would ask Derek to help him with his homework and keep nodding seriously at Derek’s confused explanations even after it had been made very clear that Derek knew nothing about geometry. He was very different from Derek’s little sister. Cora had been a wild, unpredictable kid. Scott was predictable in his warmth. His smiles were crooked like his mom’s.

Scott’s dad was nonexistent, the picture perfect of the absentee father. Out of the house before dawn, back well into the night, he seems to be glued to his FBI-issued phone, always in the same black suit, dark circles under his eyes. The only thing Derek knew about Rafael McCall was the pinched set Melissa’s mouth took when someone mentioned his name.

The man seemed disinterested in his own family, more so in this strange foster teenager his wife had “rescued” from a tragedy. Derek’s father had been a stay-at-home dad, married to a hot shot surgeon and responsible for their five children. Derek’s only experience with toxic masculinity had been baseball locker rooms and his Uncle Peter. He didn’t trust Rafael McCall, or anyone who could not show interest in such a loving, affection-starved family.

In that period of in-between between his family’s death and learning to be a real person again, Derek broke twice. One afternoon, he was helping Scott practice for baseball tryouts. The kid was hopeless, he’d soon discover, but he was dead set on making the team as a high school freshman, and Derek hadn’t yet learned to resist Scott’s puppy eyes.

Scott’s best friend, the spazzy one with the big mouth who was always around, was just sitting there, looking sulky. Derek doesn’t remember how, but some way or other, they’d started yelling at each other, getting into each other’s face. The kid had asked Derek why he was there, in that house, with that family. That’s when Derek cracked down the middle.

He left the kids in the garden and locked himself in his room, and just- lost it. He’s honestly surprised he managed not to break any of the furniture. Or the door. Or the walls. His mind was boiling with anger and misery and grief. Overpowering, overwhelming grief. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel it in months.

Why was he at the McCalls playing house and stepping all over another lost kid’s dreams of a found family? Because everyone he had known and loved was dead.

Derek had lost everything between early morning baseball practice and second period, his entire life gone up in smoke. And he was still there, alive, breathing, screaming and crying and hitting every possible surface he could reach. He had nothing except his sister’s car, the cigarettes she’d hidden in the glove compartment and the leather jacket she’d left on the back seat. He hadn’t been able to save them or salvage their memory from his failing mind. He was just a kid left behind and forced to pick himself up and rebuild himself with incomplete pieces. He was the last of the Hales. All he could do was survive.

He let himself be undone by the pain of losing his family and he let himself feel grateful and raw when his foster family gave him kindness and understanding in return.

About a month later, when a man who was practically a stranger to him hurt those he had come to think of as his own, he’d reacted the only way he knew how to protect them. He wouldn’t lose anyone else. But no matter how many times Melissa reassured him about it and how Scott had never even hinted at being angry with him for essentially forcing his dad out of his life, Derek couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t broken a family so he could make room for himself in it.

Thundering footsteps yank him out of his reverie. Scott’s head whips up hopefully. The lanky shape of Stiles Stilinski rounds the corner of the hallway, skids to a stop next to them. Derek can read the relief on his face from there. Stiles takes a big breath, walks briskly toward Scott, who breaks into a relieved smile. The two kids embrace in a truly intense, “thank god you’re here” hug. When they break apart, Stiles keeps a hand on Scott’s shoulder, looks around. He glares at Rafael McCall, who, honoring his douchey reputation, makes a “you wanna go” face at the fourteen year old. Stiles turns to Melissa and Derek, smiles tight and nods wordlessly at them.

Derek hasn’t seen Stiles since the incident in the garden. It’s the first time he gets any sort of reaction from the kid that isn’t outright hostile. It’s a bit weird, seeing him, knowing what their last interaction unleashed for him. He shakes it off.

He reaches discreetly for Melissa’s hand, who gratefully takes it and squeezes, but he keeps an ear out for the whispered conversation Scott and Stiles are having.

Stiles is uttering a litany of reassurances and carefully disguised distractions to get Scott to stop shaking and looking in his dad’s direction. Derek must admit, if there’s one thing this kid is good at, it’s talking out of his ass. It seems to be working on Scott anyway, whose shoulders loosen just a smidge.

The court doors open. They file silently into the small courtroom, Scott shoulders shaking. Stiles holds his right hand in both of his.

All in all, it’s a miserable affair. Melissa’s lawyer presents her case and Rafael’s counters with baseless, disgusting accusations that have Derek’s blood boil and Scott fold in on himself. Derek itches to reach out and touch him, to keep him upright, to carry most of his weight for him. But every time he glances at him, he catches sight of Stiles attached to his side, the both of them hanging to each other like a lifeline.

Derek’s so tightly wound, he has to strain to hear what’s being said through the rush of blood in his ears. But when the judge demands to hear from Scott, it rings clear as day. All eyes converge on the three of them, the thin shell that is the usually buoyant, happy Scott McCall.

Derek wants to stand up and tell the judge to shove it, that Melissa is their family, that Scott can’t fucking do this. The instinct to protect him is overwhelming. But he fists his hands on his lap and stays right there.

Stiles whispers urgently in Scott’s ear, so fast and quiet that Derek can’t make out a word. But it seems to work, miraculously. Scott straightens up, nods resolutely. A clerk escorts him to the judge’s bench and his tiny figure barely flinches or stutters when he answers the judge’s questions. He keeps his answers short and straightforward. Who would you rather live with? My mom. Do you have any reason to believe she’s not fit to take care of you or Derek Hale? No. Would you like your dad to have visitation rights? Silence fills the room. Scott clears his throat. He doesn’t turns around or look at any of them. “No.”

Scott is escorted back to his seat and collapse in Stiles’ arms, heaving silent, dry sobs.

Shortly after, the judge grants full custody of Scott and Derek to Melissa, orders Rafael to pay alimony, and it’s over. In the long list of things Derek never thought he would witness, he can cross off a divorce hearing.

Melissa rushes to them, traps Scott, Stiles and him in a half-hug, half-chokehold. She’s shaking as bad as Scott is, weeping with tension and joy. Scott is right there with her. Over the mess of their sniffling heads, Stiles looks up, directly at Derek. They share a charged glance. Derek swallows.

They’re gently herded out of the courtroom by Melissa’s happily chattering lawyer. Derek looks around, but Rafael McCall has done what he does best and disappeared already. He heads for the bathroom, leaving Melissa and Scott to hug it out a while longer in the hallway.

When he gets out of the stall, Stiles is washing his hands at the sink. He hadn’t heard him come in.

He steps to the sink next to him, washes his hands in silence. It’s awkward, and weird. Derek is restless, tension and adrenalin fighting it out in his body, mixing with relief, grief, righteous anger and exhaustion. He’s- he’s really tired. He wants things to be easier. For him, for Melissa and Scott. He wants to keep putting a foot in front of the other. He doesn’t want this to be awkward, he doesn’t want to hate Scott’s best friend.

“Thanks”, he says before his brain has totally caught up to his mouth. Stiles looks over his shoulder at him, from where he’s drying his hands. “For Scott”, he clarifies without clarifying.

Stiles doesn’t need him to clarify, apparently. He turns toward Derek, folds his arms. “He did the same for me”, Stiles tells him, a shoulder going up. “When my mom- he’d do it again. He’s my brother”, Stiles says cuttingly, defiant. But his eyes have turned a shade of grief Derek knows too well.

He doesn’t want to pry. It just never occurred to him before to wonder why Scott only ever mentioned Stiles’ dad. He nods at Stiles once, exits the bathroom.

He makes a mental note to ask Scott, when the dust has settled a bit, what Stiles’ real name is.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for alcohol abuse on all fronts

**Present day**

Stiles is laughing at a disastrous joke Allison is struggling to tell because she seems unable to translate it _exactly so_ from French. A small hand comes out of nowhere, grabs onto his collar. The hand is followed by an arm and a glorious mane of stylized curls.

Stiles knows the hair used to be pulled into an artfully unkempt bun, but it clearly returned to its wild ways a couple drinks ago. Melissa looks deliriously happy, the very image of her son, and decidedly blurry. She stumbles on her heels, the shawl covering her shoulder slipping, revealing more of the deep green silk gown she’s wearing.

Even taken with alcohol, Melissa McCall looks beautiful. Much too young to have a married son. Stiles takes a second to ask himself what his dad is waiting for. He should man up and ask her out already. He’ll talk to him tomorrow. After what he put him through tonight, he’s owed some payback.

Melissa uses her grip on Stiles’ collar to keep upright, leaning forward into his space and squinting at his face. Recognition flickers through her eyes. She smiles wider.

“Stiles!” she yells, so loud that several people turn around to observe.

“Hey Mel”, he answers pleasantly.

He smiles at her as he guides her gently to a chair. She sits down shakily, but doesn’t let go of his collar. He fetches a chair with the heel of his foot, drags it close to Mel’s, and sits down too, facing her.

“How ya doin’?” he asks as she smiles at him wordlessly. “Big day, huh?”

Melissa tries to frown but she’s still smiling, which results in a weird Picasso-like expression until she finally sorts out her face. She pouts. “You’re being condescending because I’m drunk.” She pats his cheek with a little too much force. Stiles has been bitch-slapped less hard. “It’s okay honey”, she adds reassuringly, cocking her head. She leans forward, drags Stiles toward her by his collar.

“Wanna know a secret?” she drunk-whispers.

Stiles nods, because what else is he gonna do?

“I’m reaaaaally drunk”, she says, then collapses on Stiles chest, giggling.

Okay then. He pats her on the back awkwardly, trying to put her back upright, but she seems to be done not being supported some way or other. She leans on Stiles’ shoulder, surveying the tables of guests happily. She sighs.

“I’m so happy for them, you know”, she says, apropos of nothing.

Since they’re at her son and Lydia’s wedding, he infers she’s happy for them. Probably.

He looks for them in the crowd, spots them behind the bar having what looks like an argument but, knowing both of them together and separately, is probably some kind of weird marital foreplay. Gross.

“Me too”, he tells Mel. He means it. These whole two weeks have been sort of an emotional rollercoaster, but through it all, Scott and Lydia have been a good, steady thing. Stiles hasn’t felt the need to break out the divorce statistics even once.

Mel makes herself more at home on his shoulder, resting the top of her head in the crook of his neck. She smacks her lips happily.

“I want the same for you, kid”, she says, slurring her words the tiniest bit.

Uh oh. “What do you mean?”, Stiles asks uneasily. Dear God, please, not again.

“I mean”, Melissa says with a significant rise in volume, waving her hands around in front of her. “I want you to be, you know”, she makes a vague heart shape with her fingers, “happy. In love. The whole-” more vague hand gestures, “deal. Thing. You know.”

Instinctively, and because he’s panicking, Stiles looks for a Derek shaped shadow on the outskirts of the dance floor. Just like he predicted, he finds him lurking close to the bar, arms crossed, bearing a menacing “don’t you dare ask me to dance whoever you are” scowl on his face. Stiles’ heart chooses this unfortunate moment to beat double time.

“I know you don’t like to talk about this”, Melissa goes on wonderingly, strictly above what would be considered acceptable volume for a conversation between people touching, oblivious to Stiles’ dismay. “And if you’re happy alone, that’s good. I kno-”, she hiccups, “Scott explained to me, that’s- a thing young people do nowadays.” She chews on her bottom lip for a second. Stiles will be dissociating from pure embarrassment any second now.

“That’s okay, that’s perfectly fine.” She taps on Stiles’ chest, on the left side, the proverbial heart. And the literal one too, now that he thinks about it. Melissa has way too much strength for someone this drunk. “But I don’t think that’s you, honey.”

And then it all goes to shit. Melissa raises her right arm and points at Derek. “I always thought you and Derek would-”, she says loudly, cutting off mid-sentence to search her alcohol-addled brain for the appropriate words. In the periphery of Stiles’ vision, he sees heads turn toward them, ears perk up. Oh my god.

“What was I saying?” she mumbles. Her shoulders tense against Stiles’ chest. “Oh!” she all but yells. “You and Derek!”

Stiles laughs nervously, tries to think desperately of a subject change, but his mind is completely blank but for a frantic SOS message reading “get out get out get out NOW”. He’s fully supporting the 80% tequila weight of the mother slash only parent of the groom, who’s also his main maternal figure, so he can’t leave. He can’t abandon her. She’s his family, for better and, clearly, for worst.

“I always thought that there was a moment where that could have developed”, she tells him brightly. Please, if there is a God. Please. Smite Stiles into oblivion. Please. Now. He deserves it.

But no, it gets worse. She finds the need to elaborate on her train of thought. “I mean”, she says, agitated, “you guys could have been uhm-” - can he decently put his hand on her mouth and sing LALALALALA very loudly? Is that a thing that could happen? - “TOGETHER”, she shrieks with glee. Stiles wants to die.

He closes his eyes, tries to pretend the world around him doesn’t exist and this is just another nightmare. Melissa doesn’t care.

“Why didn’t that happen for you, huh? Honey?” she asks Stiles candidly, all motherly worry and lime-and-salt breath.

Stiles looks around helplessly, trying to locate someone, anyone, who could help him out of this mess. Allison fell asleep with her head on the table in front of her. How sweet and inconvenient. His dad is looking around the room with Lydia’s dad, probably trying to assess how much the houses around the square are insured for. Old straight guys are weird like that. Lydia and Scott have disappeared, probably getting a head start on their honeymoon. Good for them.

He’s getting desperate, looking for any cousin or aunt or even Brad-Chad-whatever from MIT to take the drunk lady off his hands so he can go find the nearest wall to bash his brains on, when his eyes land on Derek. He’s striding toward them, looking stormy. Stiles’ insides do the conga but he coaches his face to look as imperturbable and stoic as he can manage, bracing himself for impact.

As soon as Derek gets within Melissa’s range of sight, she raises her arms like a toddler waiting to be picked up. “My son !”, she calls happily, forgetting to keep asking Stiles why exactly he never locked that down. Derek gives her a small, kind smile, at war with the concerned expression on his face. He glances quickly at Stiles then focuses back on Melissa, crouching to get on her level.

“Hey Mel”, Derek says in a soft voice Stiles knows well. He used to call it his “mama’s boy” voice. “Wanna get some air?”

Melissa reaches a hand toward him. Derek catches it in both of his. “With you?” she asks theatrically. “I’d go anywhere with you”, she says. The fierceness in her voice is somewhat lessened by the slurring of her words. With her other hand, she traces part of Derek’s jaw and then boops him on the nose. She _boops Derek on the nose_. If Stiles wasn’t so mortified, he’d wet his pants from the hilarity. Best worst day ever.

“You’re my best boy”, Melissa tells Derek in a dreamy voice. He’s still trying to recover from the shock of it. Stiles is biting so hard on his cheeks he’s drawing blood.

“Ok mom”, Derek says, clapping his hands together, “time for some air.” He makes significant eye contact with Stiles and together they transfer Melissa from Stiles’ to Derek’s side, being very careful not to touch each other. She settles her head amicably on Derek’s shoulder, as he holds on to her waist to support what Stiles is pretty sure is her whole weight. She’s closed her eyes, and seems to be falling asleep right where they stand.

With no buffer of sound or activity between them, Derek and Stiles look at each other awkwardly. Stiles opens his mouth, closes it. “Thanks”, he whispers inadequately.

Melissa lets out a tiny snore on Derek’s shoulder, making both of them jump. With a last look at Stiles and a nod, Derek sweeps Melissa in a bridal carry and walks off. Stiles watches him go, letting out a great big sigh of relief and something else he can’t quite name.

::

**Almost two years ago**

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know this room was booked!”

Stiles lifts his eyes from the black and white keys, his mind still deeply ensconced in notes and sheet music and complex rhythms. “Wha-”

His brain finally catches up to his senses. He takes stock of the hipster-adjacent dude in the door frame and the couple of girls standing behind him, on their tiptoes to peek inside the room.

“Oh no, man, sorry, I didn’t book it”, Stiles explains. “I was just practicing and I guess I didn’t really check the t- oh shit.”

His phone says he’s been in here for over five hours. It’s fucking 9pm. He forgot to eat, again. He jumps up and scrambles to gather his things, apologizing profusely to the group of people holding violin cases and looking at him with various degrees of curiosity and disapproval.

“Hey!” someone calls just as he’s about to exit the room. He stops, turns his head. Hipster dude is smiling at him as he unlocks his case. “That Schubert you were playing?” Stiles nods, quietly impressed he recognized such an obscure piece. “It was beautiful.”

His heart beats a little faster. He smiles, nods his thanks at the stranger before the door shuts behind him. He tries to hold down a shiver. He’ll never get used to random people complimenting him. It’s so… not normal. Praise is not a Stiles thing. He knows he’s talented and he’s a hard worker, but for actual strangers to recognize that, it doesn’t quite make sense. He feels like a fraud.

His stomach growls. Fuck, he hopes there’s some pasta left in the fridge.

He can’t help but feel uneasy as he hurries home. Music has always been a productive way to zone out for him, regulate the zooming out of focus parts of ADHD, the voice constantly telling him that he’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing. But since he got to college, it’s gotten a little out of hand.

Freshman year was better, because Scott was around, but now… Stiles should maybe rethink this whole “no roommate that is not Scott, ever”. Or maybe he should get a cat. Maybe having to take care of a living thing would get him out of his head a little bit. Or maybe just a plant for starters. A cactus, something resistant.

::

“Hey”, a voice comes from his left, followed by a hand holding a beer, an arm, a shoulder, a whole person. Who leans on the bar counter next to Stiles, precariously perched on a bar stool.

They’re celebrating! The chamber music ensemble performed tonight! A whole new set! And it went awesome! The grueling hours in rehearsals were worth it! At the end of the show Professor Greene came up to them and said “not bad”. Not bad! They’re over the fucking moon! And drunk! Oh my god, music geeks can party as hard as any other college kids. Except the pharma majors. They’re evil. But the music nerds, they’re like, so _cool_! Stiles loves everyone in this bar!

“It _is_ you”, Whole Person with a Voice says, squinting at Stiles, a smirk on his face. “Piano man.”

Stiles does not know who this person calling him names is, but he loves them. They’re awesome, whoever they are. People are _the best_. Except the pharma majors.

“Are you a pharma major?” Stiles asks.

Squinty Smirk frowns at him. “No?” they say. “I’m a performing arts freshman.”

“Oh. I love you, then”, Stiles tells them sincerely.

Performing Arts Geek laughs out loud. Their laugh is kinda nasal but nice, Stiles decides.

“Let me buy you a drink first”, Nasal Laugh says. Stiles has to lean toward them because the music’s so loud. He notices then, a warm, heavy touch on the small of his back.

Uh.

“What’s your name?” shouts Touches People without Asking over the music, while gesturing to the bartender over the bar.

Stiles pauses in his complicated task of loving everyone to seriously consider giving this stranger his real name. He remembers his real name is not his _actual_ real name, so it’s all okay somehow, really.

“Stiles!” he yells. That triggers a bout of woo-ing from the music nerds hanging around. Stiles woo’s in unison. He’s so, like- connected to every single soul in this bar. His friends are amazing. He absolutely has to find that one girl, Jess or something, to tell her she’s a fucking violin genius and he would definitely take a bullet for her, a goddam grenade he doesn’t even care, she’s so talented oh my god.

“Oh, so you’re the famous Stiles”, Nasal Laugh says with an undertone of something Stiles can’t place, “I should have known”. There’s a warm pressure on his thigh. He looks down. There’s a hand that’s not his own there. He looks up. There’s a shot glass in his hand. Warm Strong Hand is smiling at him. He downs the shot in one go. It burns and tingles as it goes down. Stiles is unbeatable, king of the universe, the strongest person alive, an amazing guitar genius and he’s… like… sexy, or something. He throws his head back and laughs, and at least five people in the bar instantly fall in love with him. He’s pretty sure.

“What’s so funny?” Vodka Breath whispers in his ear. When did he get so close?

Stiles wants to reply with something smooth and flirty that will make him look mature and clever and worldly, but his brain is stuck on the fact that he’s a nineteen year old virgin and he hasn’t been at a college party since Scott dropped out and he’s not even sure he likes dudes. Also, and this has nothing to do with anything, his fingers and shoulders really hurt, he’s exhausted and he doesn’t remember when was the last time he ate a proper meal. He hasn’t seen his dad in like nine months and that’s enough time to make a baby and that’s a really weird thought to have while a stranger is almost bad touching you at a bar.

“Stiles?” Smells Like Cologne prompts.

Stiles tries to focus really hard on this guy’s face. His eyes are a clear, friendly brown. He doesn’t know why but he was expecting a shock of color, grey and blue and green and gold under bushy eyebrows. Grabby Hands takes his searching look for invitation. He leans much, much closer, bringing a hand up to the nape of Stiles’ neck. Stiles sucks in a breath. Is he really about to-

No. Nope. He isn’t about to. The booze chooses that moment to come back to the surface and splatter, hot and disgusting, all over Shocked and Grossed Out’s shirt.

Next thing he knows, Stiles is walking down the street alone, confused and still quite fucking drunk. He’s not exactly sure how he got there, and he knows he’ll feel horrible about the whole thing tomorrow, but that’s future Stiles’ problem. He’ll be satisfied if present Stiles manages to open his front door and not cry loudly in the street for no fucking reason.

He looks around the deserted streets, yellow spots of light on the concrete, his head spinning on his battered shoulders. Berkeley’s sleeping around him, or maybe the whole of California’s been lost to a zombie apocalypse or a chemical weapon or a pack of werewolves or whatever. He wouldn’t notice the difference. Loneliness is settled deep in the pit of his stomach. He wishes he had chucked it up with the booze.

He’s hopeless.

Everybody on campus will know what happened by tomorrow morning, and nobody will ever try to kiss him again. He’ll die a virgin and he won’t ever get to figure out for himself if he’s interested in sex or not. He’s pretty sure not, but what does he know, he’s a virgin! His mom was always telling him to try stuff out at least once before deciding if he liked it or not and now he’s never gonna- oh no. He runs to a trashcan. His stomach empties itself of the three poor peanuts that were left in it.

His brain is too fuzzy to keep thinking. In a zombie state, he finds his apartment building, opens the front door on his second try. His whole body is buzzing unpleasantly, his couch and coffee table moving in circles around him. He crosses the room, opens the window wide, in a desperate search for fresh air.

He can hear it. A few notes at first, barely a melody. A rhythm, almost out of reach of his right ear, hovering over him. He stumbles, hits his hip on the desk, grabs a sheet of paper, a pencil. He can taste the harmonies on his tongue under the sugar and mint and rum. Words crowd his brain, begging to be put down onto paper. He can feel it all coming together as he collapses to the floor two feet away from where the couch sits.

He feels around with his foot for the guitar he knows is tucked into a corner, practically crawls over to it. With shaking, aching fingers, he tries it out, the melody, the intricate chord progression. It works.

His throat is sore, he barely has any voice left, but he sings anyway, makes up words when he can’t read his own handwriting. A whole song. That doesn’t sound like anything else, nothing he knows or studied, not an earworm he caught on the radio. Something new. Something he made. Damn. He passes out halfway through figuring out the second verse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the second part of this chapter and the part where Scott calls Stiles to tell him he hooked up with Lydia happen within two weeks of each other


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, Hallelujah! There will be an epilogue, I (still) hope to post it by the end of this month.  
> Thank you for reading <3

**Present day**

He’s hiding. Can you blame a guy?

Everyone keeps getting drunker and asking him why a cutie like him is still single and when the big day is for him and what about Derek and he can’t fucking take it, okay?

He’s enshrouded in darkness, taking a breather in the coffee shop slash base of operations’ small backyard, sheltered from view by high hedges. He can still hear laughter and music drifting over him from the party on the other side of the building, but where he is hidden, it is quiet and dark, tranquil.

He wishes he had a lit cigarette between his fingers, a guitar, a keyboard, something to pour his thoughts from his brain into his hands. He’s stuck fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt, buttoning and unbuttoning them like a bored kid at church.

“Hello?”

He jumps, his body jerking with shock, and hits his head on the brick wall behind him. Ouch.

The shadows cast along the wall move, shift, form a familiar shape. Derek’s timid head appears in the timid sliver of light and Stiles’ eyesight.

“I didn’t mean to startle you”, Derek says, low. “I didn’t know- someone- was here.”

Stiles doesn’t know if he’s hallucinating. It sure as hell does not feel like reality. But there’s no way his mind can reproduce the fine wrinkles at the corner of Derek’s eyes with such precision.

Derek looks down at his feet. Stiles’ hand itches to reach out and touch his arm, make sure he’s real, solid next to him. Maybe he hit his head a little too hard.

“You’re always finding me”, he blurts out.

“What.” Derek looks at him like he sprouted a second head.

Oh. Stiles rewinds what he just said and how it could be construed as, uh, romantic or something. He kind of wants to bash his skull against the wall again. “I mean”, he awkwardly backtracks, “at the bachelor party? Hiding in the dark, both of us, in the same place? It’s not- nevermind.”

He looks down, hopes his flaming cheeks will burst into flame and swallow him whole.

Derek chuckles. “No, I guess you’re right.” He shuffles his feet. “We do end up. Together.” He looks around. “In dark, uh, spaces.”

A nervous laugh escapes Stiles mouth. “You made it worse.”

Derek looks at his hands, picking at the fabric of his shirt. “I did, didn’t I?”

Stiles allows himself a great big gulp of air. The cold on his cheeks feels good, settles his frayed nerves. “How’s Mel?” he changes the subject.

Derek allows it. “She’s sleeping it off”, he answers with a hint of a smile Stiles can barely make out in the darkness.

“Did she… say anything to you?” he can’t help but ask.

Derek shakes his head. “She was asleep the second we left the party.”

Stiles wants to ask why Derek came back, why he didn’t just go home after putting his mother to bed, but he is afraid of wherever the answer might lead.

Quiet engulfs them in its bubble. The party’s dissolved into a cacophony of 80’s hits and excited yelling, mostly from Scott’s remaining fire squad. It seems so far away from them it might as well be on Asgard.

The back gate is thrown open, bangs loudly against the brick wall. Stiles and Derek jump, Stiles’ skull makes painful contact with the brick, again. Concussion seems to be his destiny.

“Shhhh”, someone whisper-yells at the gate accusingly.

Derek’s eyebrows knit together. “Scott?” he calls out.

The dark silhouette of Scott outlines itself against the feeble lamplight. He staggers toward them. “Derr’k?” he slurs back.

Is everyone in Beacon Hills going to his very secret, very private hiding spot? What is going on with this town? Did they put a microchip inside Stiles’ arm? He touches his forearm surreptitiously, feeling for suspicious rectangular shapes.

Scott stops a few feet from them, squinting into the darkness. His face brightens considerably once his brain catches up to his eyes.

“Bros!” he yells happily. “Whatchu’ doin?” He slings an arm around Derek’s neck, slumps against him. Derek readjusts his stance instantly, probably supporting most of Scott’s weight. He looks fond, like letting his family use him as a crutch is a regular and welcome occurrence.

“Nothing much”, Derek answers, pointedly not looking at Stiles, “just enjoying some peace and quiet”. There’s a hint of sarcasm there, but Stiles is probably imagining it. “What about you, bud?”

Scott’s face splits in two. “My wife!” he cries happily.

Stiles turns around, half expecting Lydia to be standing there, hip cocked, judgmental and deadly. There’s nothing there, thankfully.

Scott’s head is lolling to the right, almost resting on Derek’s shoulder. “My wife”, he repeats, giggles, “wanted to get a- a head start on the”, he lifts his arm weakly to make quotation marks “marital bliss.” He dissolves into giggles on Derek’s chest.

Stiles wants to feel annoyed and awkward and weirded out and he does feel all those things, kind of. But he also feels incredibly fond. In general, it’s pretty hard to be mad or annoyed at Scott “puppy eyes” McCall. On his wedding day? Impossible.

He claps Scott on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you, bro.”

Scott opens wide eyes. “Oh shit, guys!” he yells. “It’s a secret! Shhhh!”

Derek rolls his eyes in a very McCall fashion. “It’s okay, Scott. We won’t tell anyone.”

Scott deflates, relieved. What a dweeb. He pats Derek’s chest clumsily. “Ok, guys, ok, good.” He heaves a big sigh. “I’m sooooooo happy you guys are here. Like”, his head rests on Derek’s shoulder fully, eyes closed, “my family is together again.” He opens his eyes and looks right at Stiles.

Stiles gulps as discretely as possible.

“I know you guys never got along”, Scott continues very seriously.

Oh no. Not him. Not again.

“But it means sooooo much that you, like- made an effort for today.” He tries to thump Stiles’ shoulder, misses by a hair. Derek reels him in by the waist, keeps him close and supported. “’M going to miss you soooo much, buddy. You leavin’ tomorrow already?”

Between one blink and the next, Stiles catches the panicked look Derek throws him. Stiles is too mortified to process any of it. Scott is still looking at him expectantly.

“Uh, yeah”, Stiles answers, “I think so?” He feels weirdly guilty, for no reason. Berkeley doesn’t wait. He’s already behind because of this little vacation. He doesn’t owe Scott or his dad or, or anyone else, more time here.

Scott goes cross-eyed staring at him, a sad look on his face. He nods. “S’okay. I’ll see you in the summer!” He opens his arms, takes a step forward to hug Stiles and promptly falls face first against the wall.

Stiles and Derek both jump to his side. Scott stands upright with difficulty and smiles at them, blurry. “I’m okay!”

“Maybe you should get some sleep”, Derek suggests, patting Scott’s shoulder.

Scott’s rubbing at his nose. Stiles is pretty sure a nice shade of blue will bloom under his eye tomorrow morning and Scott will have no idea what brought it on. The big, lovable, sweet moron. “Sleep”, Scott ponders. “Next to my _wife_ ”, he shouts, all adoration and wonder. “Yes! I’m gonna go… and do that!” He takes a few staggering steps toward the gate.

Derek looks at him, dubious. “You sure you can make it back?” he calls.

Scott doesn’t turn around, waves him off over his shoulder. “Sure thing!” he yells reassuringly just as a crashes into the gate with an “ouch!”

Derek looks after him dubiously, even after he’s been swallowed by the shadows. Then he looks back at Stiles and shrugs. “He’ll be okay”, he says, probably to convince himself.

Stiles shrugs too, because what are you gonna do? “Nothing bad ever happens in this town anyway.”

Derek nods, still dubious.

Stiles can’t help but notice they’re alone, in the dark, again. And it’s not like it’s a dark twist of fate, really. One of them could have bowed out, used Scott as an excuse. Derek didn’t. Stiles didn’t either. It’s like they… want to be here. In the dark. Together.

He tries really hard not to blush, glad for the shadows around them and the relative ambiguity of the situation. They’re just wedding escapees, old acquaintances. Making small talk.

Yeah, totally.

Derek’s settled against the wall next to him. Stiles doesn’t think about how close their shoulders are, almost touching. He focuses on the tip of his fingers, drumming a nervous rhythm against the brick behind him.

“Did you have fun tonight?” he asks, breaking the haze of silence and comfort settling like a dark blanket over them.

Derek looks over at where the post-wedding party is winding down, shielded from view. “Yeah”, Derek answers quietly. “It was a nice party.”

Quiet descends on them again.

Stiles chews on his bottom lip. Silence is too much pressure, he needs to keep the conversation going. He can’t even imagine the alternative.

“Your song was…” Derek trails off. Stiles suppresses a shiver. Derek looks at him. “It was something else.”

Stiles looks at his feet. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Derek huffs, lets it hang in the air between them. “Definitely a good thing, Stiles.”

There’s something in the way Derek says his name. Something… tingly.

“You’re a really good musician”, Derek adds.

“Oh, so just a good musician? The songwriting was crap?” Stiles asks, defensive. Praise is still a hard thing for him to accept. Especially coming from- certain people.

Derek looks him in the eye, smirks.

Stiles doesn’t overthink it. He doesn’t think at all. Once second he’s embarrassed and frustrated and ready to argue and the next they’re looking at each other and he just. Leans in. And just as he’s about to close his eyes all the way, Derek jerks back.

Analogies don’t lie. It’s exactly like a bucket of ice is poured over his head.

He leans back into the wall, tries to carve a space for his body into the brick. “Uh, fuck”, he stutters, looking anywhere but at Derek. “I- misread the situation. Entirely, wow. Sorry?”

He babbles mindlessly. He’s not even sure what possessed him to- How he could even- “I’m gonna- go? For a walk. In the preserve.” He scrubs at his face with both hands, can’t shut his goddamn fucking mouth. “Get myself mauled by a werewolf or something. It would probably be less painful than this, so-“

“Stiles”, Derek says, gentle.

How is it so thrilling, hearing his name fall from the lips of the man he spent the major part of his life actively despising? Why does he feel stripped bare, nerve endings alight, from this one single word?

“Nnngh”, Stiles says, eyes firmly shut, trying to melt into the wall.

“Stop, I”, Derek starts, sighs. “It’s not that, it’s just-“, he trails off.

Lead yoyos in Stiles’ stomach, churning, swirling with hope and fear. He opens his eyes. Derek’s not quite looking at him, but at a fixed point close to his head, shoulders hunched, hand slightly outstretched, like he was going to touch Stiles but thought better of it.

Stiles gulps. “What. What is it, then?”

Even in the darkness, Stiles catches it. It’s- weird. Yeah, endearingly weird. Derek is _blushing_.

“What is it, Derek?” Stiles asks again. He _needs_ to know. He can’t breathe right until he does.

“I-“, he looks at his shoes. “I took your first kiss.”

Stiles’ brain explodes. Of all the things he could have- in the whole fucking _world_ , he- what?!

“You took- what!?”

Derek has his head bowed, resolutely focused on his shoes. He’s mumbling things Stiles can’t make out. The tip of his ears is bright red. This is not the moment to be cute.

“Derek!” Stiles yells. Because, like. Seriously.

“I- y- you were barely eighteen!” Derek yells back, looking back at Stiles. ”You were leaving and you never let me- I never managed to-“, he gestures between them with his hands like _that_ ’s enough information, “so I got a little… desperate and I just- went for it!” He rakes his hands through his hair, making it stick up weirdly. Derek Hale, agitated. What a sight to behold. But Stiles doesn’t have the brain power for that right now.

“When your car broke down, you called our shop. I thought it was a- a sign or something”, Derek continues. He shuffles his feet, like he’s resisting the urge to flee. Stiles can relate. “Stiles, I’m so sorry”, Derek says, intense. “Melissa gave me hell for assaulting you like that and not even giving you a chance to consent-“

“It really wasn’t my first kiss!” Stiles interjects, because, what? Wait. “Wait. You told _Melissa_ about this?”

Derek makes a face like “of course I told my mom” before he buries his head in his hands.

“Yes”, he says, barely audible.

Stiles splutters. “Have you-“, he doesn’t even want to ask but he has to know, “told anyone else?”

Derek’s shoulders droop. He’s silent for a suspicious amount of time. “Scott was there”, he admits, defeated. Stiles’ whole body jerks, absorbing the news much faster than his brain is willing to. “He overheard us and yelled at me. I think it was the first time I ever saw him mad at me.”

“Wh- wh-?” Stiles is trying very hard not to hyperventilate. This is- unprecedented. Cataclysmic. A fucking _travesty_. “I’m gonna kill him”, he decides, and suddenly, he’s seething. “That asshole, that fiend, I’m-“ He throws his hands up in rage. “Sixteen years of friendship, gone!”

“Stiles”, Derek says in that same gentle voice.

Stiles has to fight the chill running down his spine. Goddammit. He concentrates on the rage he’s feeling. He needs it for survival, right now.

“He probably didn’t tell you because he knew you would react this way”, Derek says, sheepish. His eyes keep catching the feeble light, flashing golden, wide beams at Stiles. He crosses his arms, hunches his shoulder defensively. “And what does it matter, anyway? Everybody in town knew you didn’t like me like that, then-“

Stiles’ brain might be melting, but he does hear it, the hopeful note at the end. It’s almost nothing, barely even there, but he caught it. He’s so in tune with everything Derek says and does, that incredible beautiful moron, he-

It hits Stiles, then. A revelation. A tiny, piercing cluster of realizations, things he knows but has never actually known. It feels like- too much. Way too much for just one person to feel so quickly. Like he’s crazy hungry, but also like he just ate a really big burger. And curly fries.

Derek is looking at him, caught between fight and flight, between mortification and hope, between the gentle, sweet, loving man he is and the cocky, antagonistic asshole Stiles used to see.

“Maybe”, Stiles clears his throat. “Maybe I didn’t.”

Derek looks at him, brows furrowed, a “uh yeah, that’s what I just said” look on his face.

“N-no”, Stiles tries again, scratching at his head. “No, I mean.” He looks at the ground, sighs. “Maybe I kinda did.” He looks up slowly, not quite catching Derek’s eyes. “Like you. A little bit, um.”

Derek gives him a pained look. Stiles’ hand shoots out without conscious thought (he should really learn to control his own body), grabs Derek’s wrist. It’s warm under his touch, surprisingly bony.

“Dude, uh”, Stiles lets his mouth wander while his brain is still playing catch up. He’s clearly not in control of what’s happening here, he might as well let it runs its course. “I’m serious, I did. Like you.” He tugs on Derek’s wrist a little bit, just to see the give of it, of Derek's body against Stiles’ momentum. Unsurprisingly, there’s none. Derek resists him easily. Stiles sighs, searches for the Derek’s conflicted gaze, for the kind of eye contact that only conveys sincerity. “I mean- don’t get me wrong, I also _really_ disliked you.”

Derek snorts. Stiles tugs on his wrist again, just a tiny little bit.

“You were such a douche, prancing around school in your vintage leather jacket”, Stiles reminisces. “How could people- how could I not want to bring you down a peg or two?” He shakes his head. “And you were always around. That time I put fish in the Camaro?” He tugs more insistently. Derek takes a tiny little step closer. “I want you to know, I really meant it.”

Derek chuckles at that, inclines his head in a “fair enough” gesture.

“But I also, um… I was always- thinking about you, and how you would react to stuff I did.” He let his grip on Derek go limp, almost but not quite releasing his hold. He looks at the dark trees on the horizon, the familiar shapes of his hometown around them. “I really enjoyed you- noticing me. And, I’m just saying- maybe it was kinda nice. When you kissed me.”

He brings his left hand up, pokes Derek in the chest once. “Even though it definitely _wasn’t_ my first kiss, Hale. And your mom is right. A gentleman always asks. Vocal consent is sexy.”

Derek is looking at him wide-eyed. A hint of a smile ghosting over his face. Quietly hopeful. “Noted.”

Stile realizes, he’s still holding onto Derek’s wrist. They’re standing there in the dark, looking at each other silently, and Stiles has whiplash. He doesn’t remember how he got from point A to point B. All he knows is, the view’s not bad from point B.

Derek clears his throat purposefully. Stiles straightens up.

Derek does that horrible, no good thing that should be banned instantly and forever. He looks at Stiles from under his lashes. Like that’s fair.

“Maybe we could get coffee, tomorrow?” he asks, hopeful and cute. Epiphanies keep hitting Stiles in the face, because at that exact moment he realizes Derek Hale makes him feel things, has made him feel things, nobody else ever has. They’re vibrating at the same frequency, or something less horribly romantic.

Stiles tries to shrug it off because this is Too Big to consider when multicolored eyes are gazing into his with quiet anticipation.

“I was, uh-“, he says, cringing already, “I was planning on driving back to Berkeley…” He instantly wants to eat his words as Derek goes from puppy dog to shut down douche guy in a second.

“But!” he yells, making both of them jump. “But”, he repeats at a more acceptable volume, “I’m not in a rush. Spring Break’s not over. I might- we could. Yes.” He looks into Derek’s eyes. “That’s a yes. To coffee. Tomorrow. With you.”

Derek nods, smiles at him small and private. God. Stiles is still very new to this, but it does feel quite nice, you know. Feelings and stuff.

“Wanna drive to the next town over so we’re not spied on from all fronts?” Derek suggests wisely.

Stiles chuckles, shakes his head. “As long as we’re in Beacon County, we’ll never be safe”, he tells him. “Sheriff’s son privileges”, he adds.

Derek looks at him. “You mean ‘teenage delinquent privileges’.”

“That too.”

Derek’s eyes twinkle. This sure feels a hell of a lot like flirting.

::

**The day after the wedding**

Stiles’ body is sunk in a plastic armchair that’s probably older than him. Derek is facing him, two paper cups of coffee between them. Stiles barely slept, passed out from exhaustion twice in the shower this morning. But now, with the full force of Derek Hale's gentle gaze on him, he feels- very alive.

It’s not a bad feeling.

The decor of this remote little coffee place Derek found just outside of Beacon County seems taken directly out of the nightmares of an 80’s interior designer. The upside is, they’re almost completely alone. The downside is, there’s very little surrounding chatter to cover the awkward silence between them.

Derek takes a sip from his cup, nods. “Good coffee.”

Stiles nods too. “Yeah.”

Awwwkwwwwaaard. What’s happening to him? Stiles has never met an awkward silence he couldn’t fill. He’s the undefeated champion of mindless chatter, the king of talking out of his ass. But he’s tongue-tied. He said so many Things yesterday. He’s bare, empty. There’s nothing left to say.

Derek looks at him, frowns. Shit, he’s thinking that this was a bad idea, Stiles is a dud. He regrets last night, he’s gonna-

“So”, Derek says, business-like.

Stiles hunches his shoulder protectively. “Sooooo…”

“You liked me in high school.”

Stiles splutters. Derek smiles, devilish.

Oh, okay. Two can play at that game. Stiles leans forward, plays with his paper cup.

“You liked me first.”

Derek huffs the beginning of a laugh, looks away, toward the wide windows and the trees beyond them. “I thought you were- crazy in love Lydia or something.”

Stiles nods, his mind flooding with memory. “Oh, I was, two million percent.” He frowns. “Except I wasn’t at all.”

Derek frowns at him, cocks his head.

Stiles shrugs. “I didn’t know her. I just thought she was scary, and clever, and perfect. I thought if she ever liked me, it would make all of the other stuff go away. I wouldn’t be angry and sad because of my mom all the time, and I wouldn’t care that my dad was disappointed in me, and I wouldn’t need Scott and the McCalls, and people at school would stop calling me the Spazz and everything would be better. But she didn’t give a flying fuck about me, she had enough boys salivating after her and making her into something she was not.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, looks at the ring of liquid his cup made on the white plastic in front of him. He can feel Derek’s gaze on him like a weight. He hopes he’s not blushing too much.

“Then in Junior year, when she actually started _talking_ to me, I discovered she was all those things, scary and clever and perfect. And, turns out, she was a pretty great friend. But she couldn’t save me from the bad stuff. Only I could.” He draws a pattern in the water with his finger. “Also at that point I was kinda beginning to think I might not be the straightest person. And, you know”, he waves a hand in the air, “I had music.”

He chances a look at Derek, sheepish. For someone who didn’t know what to say two seconds ago, he sure can talk. It’s like Derek affects his filter or something.

Derek is smiling at him. The light keeps catching the gold in his eyes. Stiles looks down. Can’t stare at him for too long.

Derek clears his throat. “I remember that Queen cover you did at your graduation. It was pretty great.”

Stiles doesn’t meet Derek’s eyes. “I know”, he says. “You- you said already, um. You know. That time.”

“You mean when we kissed?”

Stiles almost drops his cup. He whips his head up and stares at a grinning, twinkly-eyed Derek, stuck between outrage and awe. “Are you- flirting with me in a pre-Starbucks coffee shop at the deadass of dawn?” he asks.

Derek raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s 2pm.”

Stiles shrugs. Po-ta-to po-tah-to.

“And what if I am?” Derek counters with a smirk.

Stiles smiles, big. He tries not to enjoy the honest-to-God butterflies fluttering in his stomach. “Nah, just checking. It’s nice.”

From the corner of his eye, he catches how Derek’s breath catches in his throat for a second.

Yeah. This is very nice.

::

Derek drives them back in his Camaro. Still in perfect condition, motor purring like a kitten in Derek’s expert hands. This car, and it’s okay for Stiles to admit it to himself now, is a total babe magnet. It’s basically sex on wheels. He almost regrets hiding dead fish in it, that one time. Almost.

Derek is focused on the road, but the silence between them has softened. There’s a current of something here, and it’s- promising. Exciting. Stiles feels a little giddy with it.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you”, Derek says, glancing at Stiles quickly, “would it be okay if I drove down to see you perform, some time?”

That’s- unexpected. Stiles hasn’t really had time to think about this. About any of this. Derek and him and Beacon Hills and Berkeley and what it means if maybe they want to be- in each other’s life or whatever. He tries to imagine it, for a minute. Derek Hale, in Berkeley, sitting here, glaring, while Stiles struggles through a concerto.

Walking through campus, maybe holding hands, feeding the fat ass squirrels running around the park, showing him the tree he likes to study under, his favorite rehearsal room, the hallway where a freshman had a tantrum and exploded her cello, rock concert style. It’d be weird. An out-of-body experience. But he feels wishful too. Like he’s been waiting, storing all this life until he has someone to share it with. And it’d be nice, if that someone was Derek.

He nods, gulps discreetly. “I’d like that.”

::

Derek drops him off at his dad’s, gets out of the car to say goodbye. Right there on the porch steps of his childhood home, he goes for it. The kiss is awkward, inexpert. Stiles is not sure if this is the right setting, if it’s too fast. Derek’s lips taste like coffee and sugar. They break apart. Derek’s eyes do that sparky thing they do. Stiles leans in again.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap!
> 
> The epilogue is very short, just a heads up. 
> 
> Thank you to all the wonderful people who read, kudos'ed and commented on this fic, you really helped me get to the end of it.

**Some years later**

He’s breathing, soaking up the atmosphere, trying to remember what the setlist looks like tonight. People around him high five him, clap him on the back. Right. He exhales a shaky breath. Right, he’s doing this. 

He jogs on stage, tries not to cringe as the spotlight hits his eyes. He can barely make out the faces looking up at him, the mass of people filling the venue. He’s seen it empty hours earlier at soundcheck, and he’s seen bands perform here years ago. Someone told him it was sold out tonight. He knows, in theory, how many people are here. But right now, as he grabs his guitar and messes with his pedals and static runs through his ear-piece, it’s kind of hard to process.

He feels the warmth coming off them, though, the buzz of the crowd, expectant, attentive.

This never gets old.

He adjust the mic. “Hello San Francisco!” A roar answers him. He smirks.

“It’s good to be back here.” Another rounds of cheers. “Anyone here from Berkeley?” That gets the crowd riled up. They sure love their alumni around here.

Without another word, he looks back at Andy, who counts to four with his drumsticks, and they kick off the show. The home crowd is always good. Welcoming, happy to see him. The front rows sings his words back at him. It’s not quite Beacon Hills levels of frenzy, it’s a hipper, mellower version of the same warmth.

Stiles feels the crowd respond to the great show they’re putting out. He’s done this enough now that he can have fun with it, let the music come to life, in that shared moment, without second thoughts or expectations. God, he loves this. Live shows, the road. Getting to play his songs to people who seem to genuinely enjoy them. It’s still surreal, when he thinks about it hard.

The song ends, the lights fade. The whole venue is dark, except for the spotlight on him. He waits for the quiet to fall on the crowd. This is another kind of adrenaline. He works real hard on keeping his eyes on the crowd. 

“This next song is for someone very special to me, who’s here tonight.” 

The crowd cheers. He grins, strums the first few notes on his guitar, and the music takes over, like it always does. It takes possession of him. His fingers on the strings, his right foot keeping tempo, his heartbeat, his brain void of anything but this moment. When he hits the chorus, he can’t help himself. He chances a look to his right, in the dark wings. Derek crooks a smile at him.

Stiles’ heart skips a beat. He almost fumbles the bridge. Damn. 

He can’t believe Derek still makes him feel like this, after all this time. He’s standing next to a roadie, looking grouchy and out of his element. Stiles knows for a fact he’s trying to hide how proud he is. And Stiles feels like he did the first time they held hands, the first time he got Derek to try his favorite burger at his favorite diner off campus, and the first time they said “I love you” to each other. He always feels this thrill, this ocean of possibilities they could sail through together. All it takes is a smile.

He never thought he’d end up here. That people would want to listen to his music and he’d get paid to go around and play shows and create more music, his own music, something he made with his hands and his mind and his heart, and he’d get to be proud of it and put it into the world to be welcomed and loved. He never thought he could do that, and have a person to come home to at the end of the day. Or, at the end of tour, in this particular case. He never thought he’d get to call a place home, and mean it. And he never thought that place would be Beacon Hills, and it would be full to the brim with friends and his ever-growing family. He’d never thought Lydia Martin would want him to be godfather of her child. Derek’s still mad about that, but he’ll be godfather of the next one, Scott told him  _ in utmost confidence _ . 

He’d never in a million years thought he would be so lucky. He looks again, because he can. Derek points at the audience, lifts a stern eyebrow. Stiles muffles a smile in his shoulder, turns back to the mass of writhing bodies, the faces facing him. He sings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the last Sterek fic I'll ever write... I had a lot of trouble finishing it, but I am glad I did. I hope you had fun reading it.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [innermanboobs](http://innermanboobs.tumblr.com)
> 
> Come support my [original fiction](http://mandooks.com/) :)


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